Aim to Do Nothing
So, has the conversation moved beyond setting New Year’s goals? I know I do because by this time, there is a buffet of thoughts and feelings, guilt, ambivalence, even lack of motivation. You know all the different ways this gets worded, “the theme for this year” or “the word for my year is ___________” and the list of options goes on forever.
I’d like to challenge you to stop setting goals.
Let’s try doing one thing that is not really a goal.
Every January, leaders, like many people, set goals, resolutions, and targets… only to find themselves drained again by February. We recharge our phones better than we recharge ourselves.
The simple principle here; we know when you put a cell phone in airplane mode, it will not charge it. How many of us get caught thinking that unplugging from work will somehow recharge us? Yet, how often do we think about a recharge goal instead of any other goal?
Some of you might not be old enough to remember that older vehicles did not have battery savers. It is a fancy way of saying that when you or I left the dome light on in our vehicle [usually the coldest night of the year btw], this little dome light would drain the battery. The morning resulted in a ‘click, click, click’ from the motor and little else. Oh, the ‘joy’ it would bring us when that happened as we were often in a hurry! The “dome lights” of stress, family demands, workplace expectations, unresolved tension, and constant responsibility continue to trickle-drain us. Yet the thinking is often, unplug from work to recharge.
Maybe the problem isn’t that we’re setting the wrong goals. Maybe the problem is that we’re setting goals at all.
Goals often become another “should,” not a source of motivation, passion, charge or clarity. They point outward — expectations, metrics, deliverables — instead of inward to meaning, identity, and passion.
So, what if this year, instead of setting more goals…
you and I aimed to do nothing?
Not idle nothingness. Not avoidance.
But the kind of “nothing” that actually matters — the things that charge us, ground us, reconnect us with who we ARE (Living the I AM) rather than what we HAVE to do. Maybe it's about becoming less of a human DOING and more of a human BEING.
This is the “tea-bag in hot water” principle of life, and leadering. When one is in hot water, what’s inside always leaks out. Pressure reveals what charges us and what drains us.
So often people get recognized and leaders are often celebrated for doing more, achieving more, pushing more. When our inner battery is running in the yellow-to-red, the mismatch between expectations and energy becomes its own crisis.
The tension is this:
If we keep doing things that matter to others, we’ll eventually have no energy left for what matters to us.
This year, instead of chasing goals, consider this four-step rhythm – the 4 A’s:
AIM — Choose one thing that charges you
Not a task.
Not a metric.
Not a responsibility.
One thing that genuinely charges your battery.
Ask:
"What is the one thing that, if I did more of it this year, would restore passion, presence, and charge?"
ANCHOR — it in your values
Why does this matter to you?
Where does it connect to purpose, identity, or meaning?
When you e-VALUE-ate this recharger, does it truly matter?
ACT — Practise it imperfectly
The goal isn’t mastery — it’s motion.
Practice builds pattern.
Small steps create momentum.
Don’t forget the law of physics – only an object in motion gathers friction.
As I always remind people:
ALIGN — Adjust as you grow forward
Check in weekly:
This is where real transformation happens — not in the big leaps or fancy goals, but the faithfulness of continual steering to grow forward.
R — Result / Reflection
If you do one thing that truly charges you this year — one thing that isn’t a goal, but a value — you’ll notice:
clearer thinking
steadier emotions
healthier culture around you
more courageous action
renewed passion
and the “finish well” confidence I talk about in my book, Run Toward the Roar
Because when leaders are charged, teams feel it.
When people are charged, leaders feel encouraged.
When leaders live anchored, cultures feel trust.
And when leaders align identity with action, everything becomes possible.
This year:
Aim to do nothing — nothing that drains, distracts, or dilutes.
Do the one thing that re-charges, renews, and restores.
