When Your Goals Drift Out of Reach
A New Year Reflection on Realignment, Perspective, and Choosing a Better Line
Have you ever noticed how a goal you were once excited about can quietly slip downstream… almost without you noticing?
One week you’re fired up, certain this is your season to level up — in your fitness, your river skills, your work, your relationships — and then, suddenly, you look up and realize you’re nowhere near where you intended to be. It’s frustrating. It’s discouraging. And sometimes it feels like everyone else is rowing clean lines while you’re spinning in a slow, confused eddy, wondering what went wrong.
When I find myself in that place, the thing that actually works, the thing that brings me back to clarity, is the same thing I would do on the river:
I scout.
A few summers back, I was kayak guiding a stretch I know well. Familiar canyon walls, warm sun bouncing off the oars, the kind of day where everything feels predictable. The water was higher than usual — not dangerous, just different. The kind of “different” that tricks you into thinking you already know what you’re doing.
I came to a rapid that I knew well but also knew I wanted to scout. So I grabbed an eddy, made sure all my students made it in with me and we climbed the cliff to scout.
From above, the line looked clean. Straightforward. The kind of move you’d swear was simple: follow the tongue, miss the hole, stay off the laterals coming off the canyon wall.
But when I got back into my kayak, the entire rapid disappeared from view and all I could see were little bits of whitewater getting flung into the hot desert air. The tongue was steeper. The holes, hidden. The laterals had more punch than I expected. And the current pulled in ways you can only understand when you’re at water level.
If I had relied only on the high-bank perspective, I would have picked the wrong line.
Because perspective changes everything.
It’s the same with our goals, especially at the beginning of a new year.
We set them from the “overlook,” where everything looks clean and simple. But once we’re back in the current of daily life, the angles shift. Obstacles appear. The line we thought was obvious starts to disappear. That doesn’t mean we’re failing. It means it’s time to find our markers and orient.
When a goal keeps slipping away from me, I ask myself:
Why did I choose this?
Do I still want it for the same reasons?
Is the path I picked actually the right path?
What’s pulling me off-line?
What am I not seeing from this angle?
Not all goals stay aligned once we’re down at river level. Some aren’t even ours; they came from old expectations, outdated identities, or someone else’s vision of who we should be. Clarity comes when we’re willing to climb the bank, look again, and choose a line that actually fits who we are becoming.
And here’s something I’ve learned over and over:
I almost never see the full picture when I scout alone.
Yes, I can recognize hazards. I can evaluate risk. I can pick a line. But my lens is still my lens; shaped by my history, my fears, my strengths, my blind spots.
The best scouting I’ve ever done, on the river and in life, has always involved other people. People who notice what I missed. People who see a smoother line. People who challenge me or call me forward. People who aren’t tangled in my fear stories.
That’s why I love coaching — being that second set of eyes for my clients, providing the angles they can’t see, asking the questions they didn’t know to ask, pointing out the hidden rocks they’ve been navigating around without realizing it. And it’s why I work with a coach myself. Because none of us can see our own blind spots. It’s simply easier to paddle a beautiful line when someone is scouting with you.
So as we enter a new year, here’s my invitation:
If your goals feel slippery…
If you’re tired of drifting off-line…
If you’re ready for a fresh angle, a clean line, and a more grounded approach to the life you want to build…
Let’s scout together.
I’m opening enrollment for the January 8th Resiliency Mindset Training, a six-week container designed to help you recalibrate your goals, develop mental and emotional resilience, and build the momentum you want for 2026.
If you prefer deeper, personalized work, I also offer 1:1 coaching pathways designed to weave together mindset, nervous system awareness, aligned leadership, purpose, and accountability.
Start the year with intention. Choose the line that’s actually yours. And let’s row it together.