Are you falling into the trap of unrealistic expectations?
I have set goals I had no business setting. The kind you scribble down at midnight, fuelled by a motivational video and three cups of coffee, that feel thrilling for about forty-eight hours and then quietly curdle into guilt. “Lose ten kilos by next month.” “Double the business by quarter end.” “Read fifty books this year.” Big, round, dramatic numbers. And almost every one of them set me up to fail — not because I was lazy, but because I’d confused an aspiration with a plan.
That’s the trap I unpack in the video above. We don’t usually fall short because we aim too low. We fall short because we aim at a fog.
The real distance: from wishing to doing
If you’ve read Making Change Happen, you’ll recognise the spine of this argument. The book keeps circling one uncomfortable truth: the challenge is rarely identifying what needs to change. We all know. We know we should move more, spend smarter, listen better. The gap is execution — the quiet, unglamorous distance between knowing and doing.
An unrealistic expectation is the purest form of that gap. It names a destination and then conveniently skips the directions. “Get fit” is not a goal; it’s a wish wearing a goal’s clothing. And because a wish gives you nothing to do tomorrow morning, it dies the moment motivation does. Remember the book’s line:
What’s effortless to do is just as effortless to neglect.
A vague goal is effortless to set. That’s exactly why it’s so easy to abandon.
Why SMART works — and what it really fixes
In the video I walk through the SMART framework, and it’s worth saying clearly where it comes from, because it’s a genuinely useful tool and not a piece of internet folklore. The acronym was introduced by George T. Doran in 1981, in a Management Review article titled “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives.” Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.
But here’s the part that matters more than the letters. SMART isn’t really about being clever with words. It’s a forcing function that drags a goal out of the fog and into the realm of action. Watch what happens to “I want to get fit”:
- Specific — Walk and strength-train, not “be healthier.”
- Measurable — 8,000 steps and two strength sessions a week.
- Achievable — Two sessions, not seven. Your real life has to fit through the door.
- Relevant — It connects to why you care: energy for your kids, not a number on a scale.
- Time-bound — Reviewed every Sunday, not “someday.”
By the end, you don’t have a slogan. You have something you can do on Monday. That conversion — from inspiration to instruction — is the whole game.
The Achievable letter is where honesty lives
If I had to defend one letter, it’d be the A. Achievable is where unrealistic expectations go to die — and where most of us cheat. We set the heroic version because it feels more virtuous. But a goal you can’t keep doesn’t build discipline; it manufactures shame, and shame is a terrible engine for change.
This is also where the effort → effortless idea from the book comes in. The aim isn’t to white-knuckle a giant target through willpower forever. It’s to set a target small and clear enough that the action becomes a habit — something that eventually runs without you having to negotiate with yourself every morning. Effort, repeated, becomes effortless. You don’t rise to your ambitions; you fall to the floor of your systems. Build a high floor.
It’s not just a work tool
It’s easy to file SMART goals under “career” or “business” and stop there. Don’t. The framework earns its keep across the eight spheres the book is built around — finances, relationships, the physical, the mental, family, lifestyle, all of it. “Be more present with my family” is a beautiful wish and a useless goal. “Phone in a drawer from 7 to 9pm, four nights this week” is something you can actually be measured against — by the most honest auditor you have, which is the person living beside you.
The spheres are where unrealistic expectations do the quietest damage, because nobody’s holding you to a quarterly review on your marriage or your sleep. You have to hold yourself.
What to do before you close this tab
Pick one goal you’re currently carrying around as a vague wish. Just one. Run it through the five letters — out loud or on paper — and be ruthless with the Achievable test. Shrink it until it’s almost embarrassingly doable, then schedule the very first action with a real time attached.
There are trackers and worksheets in the free resources built for exactly this, so you don’t have to invent the scaffolding yourself. But honestly, the index card on your desk works too.
Aim at something you can hit this week. Then hit it again next week. That, not the midnight slogan, is how change actually happens.