The Hardest Goals Don't Have Finish Lines 🌿
By Sage Robinson-Miller – Growth Coach – Growing Sage
I miss goals I could actually measure.
Not because I want to go backward.
Not because I miss the pressure.
And definitely not because I miss the eighty-five-hour work weeks. 🤣
I miss them because there was something comforting about knowing exactly where the finish line was. You knew what success looked like. You knew what you were working toward. You knew when you had arrived. Get the degree. Earn the certification. Build the program. Win the championship. Reach the milestone. Cross the finish line. Simple.
Or at least that's what I used to think.
For most of my life, I was chasing goals that had very clear scoreboards attached to them. Athletics has scoreboards. Education has grades. Careers have promotions, titles, certifications, awards, and recognition. There are measurable outcomes everywhere. You either hit the goal or you didn't. You either crossed the finish line or you didn't.
The funny thing is that I was actually pretty good at those kinds of goals.
What I wasn't prepared for was what happened after I reached some of them.
Over the years, I was fortunate enough to receive Athletic Trainer of the Year and Teacher of the Year honors. Those are incredible recognitions, and I was genuinely grateful for them. But if I'm being completely honest, neither one felt the way I expected it to.
The part that meant the most wasn't the award.
It was the people.
It was knowing that somebody had taken time out of their already busy life to write a nomination letter. It was knowing that people I respected had gone out of their way to advocate for me. It was knowing that somebody had noticed.
That mattered.
A lot.
But the award itself didn't fundamentally change anything inside of me.
Maybe that's because I already knew I was showing up with my whole heart. I didn't need a plaque to tell me whether I cared about my athletes or my students. I didn't need a trophy to tell me whether I was working hard enough. I had been giving everything I had to those jobs for years. The recognition was wonderful, but it wasn't some magical moment where I suddenly felt complete.
In fact, if I'm being brutally honest, I don't know that I've ever been very good at celebrating myself.
That's probably putting it mildly. 🤣
Looking back, I can see a pattern that followed me for decades. I would set a goal, work incredibly hard to achieve it, reach it, appreciate it for about fifteen seconds, and then immediately start looking for the next thing to accomplish. There was always another project.
Another responsibility. Another problem to solve. Another goal to chase.
It's kind of hard to celebrate reaching the top of a mountain when you're already studying the next mountain.
I don't necessarily recommend this strategy, by the way. 🤣
The harder realization came much later.
Somewhere along the way, while I was building careers, helping students, supporting athletes, teaching classes, covering sporting events, and working what often felt like two full-time jobs simultaneously, I had neglected something that doesn't fit neatly on a résumé.
My own circle.
Not intentionally.
Not maliciously.
Just gradually.
One overcommitted year at a time.
I had spent so much of my life helping other people that I had unknowingly taught everyone around me that I didn't need much help myself. I had become the reliable one. The strong one. The independent one. The one who could always figure it out.
Including in my own mind.
And when you spend enough years convincing people that you've got everything handled, they eventually believe you.
The problem is that sometimes you start believing it too.
So when those big accomplishments arrived, there wasn't some huge celebration waiting on the other side. There wasn't a giant circle of people throwing a party. There wasn't some magical moment where the clouds parted and a choir started singing because Sage had finally reached another milestone. 🤣
There was mostly just me.
Grateful.
Appreciative.
And already looking toward the next thing.
For a long time, I thought the answer was bigger goals.
Then I thought the answer was different goals.
Now I'm starting to think the answer might have been asking the wrong question altogether.
Because over the last few years, I've found myself in a strange place that I never expected to be. For most of my life, if I wanted something, I could usually create a plan, work hard, stay disciplined, and eventually get there. Maybe not quickly. Maybe not perfectly. But there was always a path.
Lately, it hasn't felt that way.
There have been moments where I've looked around and realized that some of the biggest things I'm working toward don't seem to respond to effort in the same way my old goals did. I can show up consistently. I can do the work. I can learn. I can grow. I can keep moving forward. But there isn't always a direct line between effort and outcome.
Building Growing Sage has felt like that. Healing has felt like that. Creating a life with more freedom has felt like that.
I think part of the reason this transition has been so humbling is because I genuinely believed I would have everything figured out by now. When I retired from athletic training, there was a part of me that assumed eighteen months would be plenty of time to course-correct every area of my life. I was going to heal my health issues, lose the extra weight, regulate my nervous system, strengthen my relationships, build a thriving business, create financial freedom, rediscover hobbies, travel more, sleep more, stress less, and basically finally be narrowed down to one to-do list. 🤣
As it turns out, that is not how any of this works.
Apparently you can't spend twenty-five years running yourself into the ground and then expect eighteen months to magically undo all of it. Apparently healing has opinions. Apparently nervous systems don't care about my preferred timeline. Apparently relationships need time and attention. Apparently businesses don't immediately become wildly profitable simply because you're a good person with a nice heart.
Rude. 🤣
There are days where I catch myself thinking, "Can somebody please hand me a checklist?"
Seriously.
I would love a checklist.
✔️ Step 1: Heal nervous system.
✔️ Step 2: Create dream business.
✔️ Step 3: Make quarter-million dollars annually.
✔️ Step 4: Ride off into sunset.
Simple.
Efficient.
Very on-brand for my former overachiever self. 🤣
Unfortunately, life keeps refusing to cooperate with my spreadsheets.
And that's when I started realizing that maybe I wasn't working toward goals anymore. Maybe I was working toward transformations.
For most of my life, effort and results had a fairly predictable relationship. If I wanted something badly enough, I could usually create a plan, stay disciplined, and slowly work my way toward it. It might take longer than I wanted. It might require more work than I expected. But eventually there was a result I could point to and say, "There it is. That's the thing I've been working toward."
The last few years haven't felt like that at all.
Instead, I've found myself working on things that don't seem to follow the same rules. How exactly do you measure nervous system healing? How do you quantify freedom? How do you know when you've officially become more authentic, more grounded, or more aligned with who you're meant to be? There isn't a scoreboard for those things. There isn't a finish line. There isn't even a universally accepted definition of success.
Trust me, I've looked. 🤣
I would absolutely love it if there were a yearly banquet where somebody handed out awards for emotional growth.
Imagine showing up to the Nervous System Healing Awards Banquet.
"Congratulations, Sage. After twelve years of dedicated effort, your fight-or-flight response has improved by 17%. Please come accept your commemorative plaque."
I'd be standing in the front row crying.
Not because of the plaque.
Because somebody finally explained the scoring system!!! 🤣
The truth is that some of the most meaningful things I've worked on over the last few years are things nobody can see. Nobody can look at me and accurately measure how much healing has happened. Nobody can quantify how much work has gone into changing lifelong patterns, building healthier relationships, creating stronger boundaries, or learning to feel safe slowing down. Those changes don't happen in a straight line, and they certainly don't happen on the timeline I would prefer.
If they did, I would've finished all of this by now.
What I've discovered instead is that transformation operates very differently than achievement. Achievement asks you to accomplish something. Transformation asks you to become someone. Achievement rewards effort with milestones. Transformation rewards patience with growth that is often invisible until you look back years later.
And honestly, I think that's why so many people struggle when they begin doing deeper work on themselves.
There's no trophy.
There's no plaque.
There's no finish line ribbon waiting at the end.
Most days, there isn't even proof that you're making progress.
There are just small moments.
A healthier response.
A better decision.
A stronger boundary.
A deeper conversation.
A little more peace.
A little less fear.
A little more trust.
And somehow those tiny moments eventually become a different life.
The older I get, the more I realize that my life has slowly shifted from achievement goals to identity goals. I'm no longer trying to prove what I can do. I'm trying to become more of who I actually am. That's a completely different journey, and if I'm being honest, it's significantly harder than anything I've done before.
Achievement is straightforward.
Becoming is messy.
Achievement says:
"Follow the plan."
Becoming says:
"We're going to completely change who you are, and we're not providing a timeline."
Rude. 🤣
But maybe that's the lesson.
Maybe the most important things in life aren't measurable.
Maybe freedom isn't measurable.
Maybe healing isn't measurable.
Maybe belonging isn't measurable.
Maybe peace isn't measurable.
Maybe the reason these goals feel so difficult is because they aren't really goals at all.
They're transformations.
And transformations don't have finish lines.
They simply have moments where you look back and realize you're no longer the same person who started the journey.
Maybe that's why I'm finally learning to be a little more patient with myself. Maybe that's why I can sit in my office on a Saturday night, pouring another thirty hours into a business that still hasn't made me rich, and somehow still feel grateful.
Because despite all the uncertainty, this work makes my heart happy.
Does that mean I've completely figured it out?
Absolutely not.
If you've read literally any of my blogs, you already know that's not how this story goes. 🤣
But I do know this: for the first time in my life, I'm chasing goals that feel aligned with who I want to become, not just what I want to accomplish.
And while those goals don't come with trophies, certificates, plaques, scoreboards, or a conveniently updated progress bar, they do come with something I've spent a very long time looking for.
A deeper sense of peace.
And honestly?
That's a prize I'm finally learning not to rush past. ❤️
Reflection Questions
🌿 What goals am I pursuing that don't have measurable finish lines?
🔥 Have I been chasing achievement when what I really want is connection?
🕯️ If nobody ever handed me a trophy, would this still be worth pursuing?
Thank You for Growing w/Me.
With Love,
– Sage 🌿
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