Daniel wrote in with a whole thing about goal tracking, and I have to admit, reading it I felt a little seen. He says just mentioning the word makes him nervous, that it triggers what he calls the ADHD organization response, which is a phrase I'm going to borrow because it names something real. But he also says goal tracking matters, especially in therapy, because without it you get sessions that drift, that feel open-ended and directionless. So his question is really about how to capture and distinguish two very different sets of goals. One, the time-limited stuff, the acute thing you came in the door for. Two, the lifelong aspirational stuff, the direction you want your whole life to head. And his hunch is that the common failure mode is trying to tackle too much at once, someone showing up for an acute situation and then unloading every dissatisfaction about themselves into the intake session. He gives his own example, a lifelong goal of not caring too much what people think, living true to himself, and he says there's a vast gulf between recognizing that as worthwhile and actually doing it. So the ask is, if you wanted to take an inventory of your soul, to be a bit cheesy, and come up with an ordered list of challenges and aspirations, what are the tips for doing that well?
So let's start with why the word itself makes us nervous.
Because it sounds like homework you're going to fail.
That's actually not far off. The clinical picture is that adults with ADHD often have all-or-nothing thinking and perfectionism baked in, so a tracking system feels like a setup. You miss one day of logging and the whole thing's ruined, so why bother. It's not laziness, it's that the brain treats an incomplete record as a failed record.
Which means the tool that's supposed to help becomes the thing you're avoiding.
And the avoidance then confirms the story that you can't do it. So the resistance to the word goal is itself diagnostic. It's not that you don't want clarity, it's that every previous attempt at clarity came with a built-in shame mechanism.
Daniel also frames this in a therapy context, which I think is the right place to land, because therapy is where the two types of goals get tangled up most easily. You walk in for panic attacks, and forty minutes later you've told the therapist you also want to be more confident, less of a people-pleaser, more authentic, and you'd like to stop caring what strangers think. And the therapist is now holding five different threads and doesn't know which one is the emergency.
That's the failure pattern Daniel's pointing at, and it's real. So before we get to the how, we need to understand the failure pattern we're all walking into.
The intake session as a confession booth.
Right. And the reason it happens is that the intake session is the one moment where someone has formally asked you what's wrong. So you answer with everything, because you've been carrying everything, and this is the one place you're allowed to put it down. But the therapist can't sequence that pile. And without sequencing, the work becomes diffuse, and that's when therapy starts to feel open-ended in the bad way.
So the first move is separating the two types before you even walk in. And this is where I think Daniel's instinct is exactly right. There are time-limited goals, which have an endpoint and a measurable outcome. Reduce panic attacks in three months. Complete a six-week CBT course for social anxiety. Get through a specific breakup. Those are projects. Then there are the lifelong aspirational goals, which are never done. Be more authentic in relationships. Stop caring what others think. Live true to yourself. Those aren't projects, they're directions.
And this maps almost perfectly onto the distinction Acceptance and Commitment Therapy makes between goals and values. Goals are achievable, time-limited outcomes. Values are ongoing directions that guide behavior but are never fully completed. You never check the box on being more authentic. You just keep moving toward it.
So Daniel's lifelong aspirational goals are what ACT would call values.
And the distinction matters because the two types do different jobs. A time-limited goal tells you what you're working on this month. A value tells you why that work matters. The panic attack reduction is the project. The value underneath might be something like living a life where fear doesn't decide what you do. You need both, but you need to know which is which.
Because if you treat a value like a goal, you're setting yourself up to fail. There's no finish line on not caring what people think. You can't complete that in eight sessions and get a certificate.
And if you treat a goal like a value, you never get the satisfaction of finishing anything. Everything becomes this vague lifelong project with no milestones.
So the first thing to understand is that the word goal tracking makes us nervous partly because we've been using one word for two very different things, and one of those things cannot be tracked the way we think tracking works.
And the ADHD piece makes this sharper. Goal management training for ADHD adults, the actual intervention research, shows that breaking tasks into smaller, prioritized steps improves executive function and follow-through. Externalizing goals, getting them out of your head and onto paper, reduces cognitive load. The brain doesn't have to keep rehearsing the list, which is exhausting. So the tracking itself, done right, is actually more helpful for ADHD brains than for neurotypical ones. But done wrong, with a big vague list and no structure, it's a wall.
So the anxiety isn't about tracking per se. It's about tracking the wrong way, or tracking the wrong type of goal with the wrong tool.
And there's a research finding here that I think reframes the whole thing. A 2017 study by Gloster and colleagues looked at valued behavior, actually doing things in line with your values, and found that it precedes reductions in psychological suffering. Meaning the order matters. You don't wait until you feel better to start living according to your values. You start living according to your values, even in small ways, and the feeling better follows.
That flips the usual story. Most people think, once I'm less anxious, then I'll be more authentic. The research says it's the other way around.
That's the active ingredient. Aspirational goals aren't just nice ideas you put on a vision board. When they're translated into concrete actions, they're doing therapeutic work. But the translation is the part everyone skips.
So once you've got the two types clear in your head, the next question is, how do you actually take that inventory and make it useful?
The process Daniel's asking about. And I think the first rule is, the inventory is a brain dump, not a prioritization exercise. You write everything down without judgment. Every challenge, every aspiration, every half-formed thing you've been telling yourself you should work on. The act of writing it down externalizes it, which is exactly what the ADHD research says reduces cognitive load. The list in your head is heavy because you're holding it all at once. The list on paper is just a list.
So you're not allowed to edit while you write.
No editing. No deciding if something's too small or too vague or too embarrassing. The point is capture, not curation. You can throw things out later. But if you start curating during the capture, you'll suppress the things that actually matter because they feel too big.
Then what?
Then you categorize. Two columns. Column one, what's urgent right now. The time-limited stuff. Usually symptom-driven, usually has an endpoint. Column two, what direction do I want my life to take. The values-based stuff, never fully completed. And here's the thing, most people find that column one is shorter than they expected and column two is longer.
Because the urgent stuff is loud but finite. The lifelong stuff is quiet but endless.
Right. And the categorization itself is clarifying. You start to see that some of the things you thought were urgent are actually just noise, and some of the things you thought were aspirational are actually pretty concrete.
Give me an example of that second one.
Someone might write down, I want to be less of a people-pleaser. That sounds aspirational, lifelong. But when you poke at it, there's a concrete behavior underneath. You say yes to things you don't want to do. That's trackable. You could count the number of times this week you said yes when you meant no. So what looked like a value is actually a goal hiding inside a value.
And the reverse can happen too. Someone writes, I want to finish this project at work, and underneath that is a value about being someone who follows through on commitments.
So the categorization isn't just sorting, it's a way of seeing what's actually there. And once you've got the two columns, you don't prioritize yet. You just look at it.
Because the looking is where the insight happens.
The looking is where you notice that three of the things in column one are actually the same thing wearing different hats. Or that one of the things in column two has been on your list for fifteen years and you've never taken a single step toward it. That's information.
So then the ordering. Daniel asked for an ordered list. How do you order it?
I'd use a simple matrix. Two axes. Urgency, how much is this affecting my daily life right now. And leverage, how much will addressing this unlock progress on other things. The time-limited goals that are urgent and high-leverage go first. The aspirational goals don't go in the sequence at all, because they're not sequenceable. They're the compass.
So the ordered list is really only for column one.
Mostly, yes. The values inform the why behind each step, but they don't get a slot. You don't put be more authentic at number three. You put, have one conversation this week where I say what I actually think, at number three. The value is the reason that task is on the list.
And this is where the gulf Daniel mentioned gets bridged. Not caring what others think is abstract. You can't do it. But you can practice stating an unpopular opinion in a safe setting once a week. That's a concrete, repeatable action.
The operationalization. Values are abstract, so they need to be translated into small, repeatable behaviors. And the research says those small behaviors, done consistently, are what move the needle. Not the grand overhaul.
If someone comes in with social anxiety and lists stop worrying about judgment as a lifelong goal, the time-limited goal becomes something like, attend one social event per week and stay for thirty minutes. The aspirational goal gives meaning to the action. The action gives traction to the aspirational goal.
Each time you do it, the muscle gets a little stronger. Not caring what others think isn't a switch you flip. It's a muscle built through repeated small acts of authenticity. Each one makes the next one slightly easier.
Which connects back to the Gloster finding. Valued living isn't a reward for feeling better. It's the path to feeling better. You don't wait until the anxiety is gone to start being authentic. You start being authentic in tiny doses, and the anxiety starts to lose its grip.
That's the part most people get backwards. They think authenticity is the prize at the end of therapy. It's actually the mechanism.
Now let's talk about the intake session itself, because Daniel raised this specifically. You've done your inventory, you've got your two columns, you've ordered the urgent stuff. What do you actually bring into the room?
The written list, yes. But more importantly, the ability to say, this is the one thing I need help with right now. That sentence is the whole ballgame. Because the therapist's job is to help you sequence, not to solve everything in week one. If you walk in with a prioritized list and you can name the top item, you've done half the therapist's job for them.
You've protected yourself from the confession booth dynamic. You're not unloading everything. You're handing over a map with a starting point marked.
The therapist can hold the rest of the list. It's not going anywhere. But the session now has a compass. You know what you're in the room for, which is exactly the clarity Daniel said was missing from the open-ended therapy he'd experienced.
There's a knock-on effect here too. When you track goals this way, you start to notice that the lifelong stuff isn't actually a separate track from the urgent stuff. They're the same track at different scales. The panic attack work is in service of the value of living a life where fear doesn't decide what you do. The people-pleasing work is in service of the value of authenticity. So every time-limited goal is a mile marker on a values-based road.
That reframe reduces the pressure. You're not trying to fix everything at once. You're just driving to the next mile marker. The direction takes care of itself.
Let me push on one thing. Daniel said he's spent way too much of his life causing himself needless suffering by worrying what people thought of him. That's a painful sentence. And the advice we're giving is, pick one tiny values-aligned action per week. Does that feel like enough?
It feels like not enough, and that's exactly why it works. The all-or-nothing brain wants the big gesture, the personality overhaul, the dramatic declaration. But the research on goal management training is pretty clear that the big gesture collapses. The small action, repeated, builds the executive function that makes bigger actions possible later.
The smallness isn't a compromise. It's the mechanism.
It's the mechanism. And I'll be honest about the part I'm less certain on, which is how small is too small. There's probably a floor where the action is so tiny it doesn't register as meaningful. Saying no to one thing a day might be too much for someone starting out. Saying no to one thing a month might be too little to build any momentum. The sweet spot is probably somewhere in the weekly range, but I don't think there's a clean formula.
It's the kind of thing you calibrate with the therapist, not on your own.
Right. And that's where the relationship does work that a worksheet can't. The worksheet gives you the structure. The therapist helps you calibrate the dose.
The tips, if I had to put them in order. One, brain dump everything without editing. Two, sort into time-limited and lifelong. Three, order the time-limited stuff by urgency and leverage. Four, pick one tiny values-aligned action per week from the lifelong column. Five, walk into the intake session ready to name the one thing you need help with right now.
Six, stop treating the lifelong stuff as something you're supposed to finish. It's a direction, not a destination. The moment you accept that, the pressure drops considerably.
Because the goal was never to arrive. The goal was to be moving.
That's a much easier thing to track.
Hilbert, you've been quiet.
Hilbert: I had a client who wanted to be less of a people-pleaser. I told him to start by saying no to one thing a day. He lasted two days. Third day he said no to a meeting, and it felt so good he quit his job a month later. The point isn't the list. It's the first tiny no.
You had clients?
Hilbert: Dot-com boom. Life coach for tech founders. I made them write vision boards. Never taught them how to track progress. Total failure. I still feel guilty about it. The vision boards were nice. They hung them in their offices. Didn't change a thing.
You were selling the aspirational column without the time-limited column.
Hilbert: I was selling posters. The founders wanted to manifest abundance. I told them to visualize the exit. They visualized. The exits happened anyway, because it was the nineties and everything exited. I took credit. It was unearned.
And the people-pleaser?
Hilbert: He was different. He didn't want a vision board. He wanted to stop saying yes to things he hated. So I gave him the smallest possible assignment. One no a day. He couldn't do two days in a row, but the third day he said no to a meeting and something shifted. He described it as feeling like he'd been holding his breath for years and finally exhaled. Quit his job a month later. Started a company where he was the only employee. Last I heard he was doing fine.
The list wasn't the intervention. The single action was.
Hilbert: The list can be its own procrastination. I've seen people spend six months perfecting their inventory. Color-coded. Prioritized. Re-prioritized. Never did one thing on it. The ordered list feels like work, so you do the list instead of the work.
Daniel's exact fear.
Hilbert: The list is a tool. The tool can become the excuse. I still have a notebook from 1994 with my aspirational goals in it. It's full of the same goals I have today. Which proves the goals are directions, not failures. Or it proves I've been avoiding the small steps for thirty years. Could be either.
I think it might be the second one.
Hilbert: Probably. But the notebook's still there. I look at it sometimes. The goals haven't changed. I just never picked one tiny thing and did it. The people-pleaser picked one tiny thing and his whole life changed. I picked nothing and my whole life stayed the same. That's the difference.
The inventory without the action is just a mirror. You can look at it forever and never move.
Hilbert: The mirror's comfortable. You know exactly what you're going to see. The action is uncomfortable, because you don't know what happens next. Most people choose the mirror. I chose the mirror. The founders chose the vision boards. The people-pleaser chose the no.
The no was the smallest possible thing.
Hilbert: The no was the smallest possible thing. And it wasn't the no that mattered. It was what the no told him about himself. That he could do it. That the world didn't end. That he'd been wrong about what would happen if he stopped performing. The no was just the doorway.
The ordered list is a doorway too, but only if you walk through it.
Hilbert: Walk through it or don't. I'm not here to tell anyone what to do. I'm just saying, I spent thirty years with a list and the list didn't save me. The list was the thing I did instead of saving myself.
That's grim.
Hilbert: It's honest. The list is easier than the living. That's why people love lists.
That's a good reminder that the list is never the point. The living is.
Here's my open question, and I think it's the one Daniel's prompt leaves hanging. If aspirational goals are never done, how do you know you're on the right track? Is it a feeling? A behavior change? Some external marker?
I think it's a behavior change you can observe from the outside. You notice you're having conversations you used to avoid. You notice you're making decisions faster because you're not polling an imaginary audience first. You notice the suffering Daniel described, the needless worry about what people think, shows up less often and leaves faster when it does.
It's not a feeling, it's a pattern.
It's a pattern. And patterns are trackable, even if the goal itself isn't. You can't measure authenticity, but you can count the number of times this month you said the true thing instead of the safe thing. That's the proxy.
The proxy is enough.
The proxy is everything. The proxy is what turns a value into a practice.
I also wonder whether therapy itself would benefit from a standardized goal inventory tool, something that separates urgent from aspirational from the start. Daniel's point about intake sessions being overloaded, that's a systems problem as much as an individual one.
I'd love to see that. A one-page intake that asks, what's the acute thing, what's the direction, and what's one small step you could take this week. Three questions. It would change the shape of the first session.
But until that exists, the two-column brain dump is the DIY version, and it costs nothing.
It works. That's the thing. It's not a hack, it's just externalization plus categorization plus one small action. The research supports each piece. The Gloster finding on valued behavior, the ADHD goal management training on chunking and externalizing, the ACT distinction between goals and values. It all points the same direction.
Which is, stop trying to fix everything, and start doing one thing that matters.
That's not cheesy. It's evidence-based.
This has been My Weird Prompts. Thanks to our producer, Hilbert Flumingtop, for keeping the show running.
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