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By Evie Arnold - Gallup Certified Global Coach, ICF ACC, Positive Intelligence Coach
By now, the gym is quieter.
The notebook you bought in January is half-used.
The “new year, new me” energy has been quietly replaced by email, deadlines, and reality.
Let’s be honest for a moment. Most New Year’s goals don’t fail because you’re lazy - they fail because they were built on aspirational pressure and not personal truth.
In January, I wrote about why traditional goal-setting collapses under its own weight. February is where that theory becomes painfully practical. This is the month where motivation disappears, and what’s left is either substance… or silence.
So here’s the uncomfortable question: Were your goals ever truly yours?
The real problem: you built goals without a foundation
Most people set goals based on:
- What sounds impressive
- What other people are doing
- What they think they should want
- What looks good on LinkedIn
That’s not vision ≠ that’s performance.
⮽ You don’t need more discipline.
⮽ You don’t need another productivity hack.
☑ You need alignment.
As leaders, when goals are disconnected from our core values and natural talents, they feel heavy…forced…draining.
And when something constantly drains you, you stop doing it - not because you lack willpower, because your system is rejecting it.
Motivation isn’t a feeling. It’s a signal.
If your motivation has dipped this month - that’s important data.
It’s telling you one of three things:
- The goal isn’t aligned with what you value.
- The method doesn’t match how you naturally operate.
- You’re trying to become someone you’re not.
That’s why generic goal frameworks fail. They assume everyone is wired the same way - they aren’t - and neither are you.
Why values are the missing piece
Values aren’t fluffy words on a website, they are the operating system behind your decisions.
When your goals reflect your values:
- Effort feels purposeful.
- Discipline feels meaningful.
- Progress feels energising, not exhausting.
Most professionals cannot clearly articulate their real values – I was well into my 40’s before I could. So instead we default to clichés: integrity, excellence, teamwork. Safe words. Corporate words.
It’s useful to recognise that values aren’t aspirational slogans, they’re behavioural patterns - and that’s where CliftonStrengths® changes everything.
Cliftonstrengths® doesn’t just reveal talents. It exposes what you actually care about.
The CliftonStrengths® assessment isn’t about personality labels. It identifies your dominant patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Your strengths reveal:
- What energises you
- What you prioritise
- What irritates you
- What you instinctively protect
- Where you naturally create impact
In other words, they reveal your lived values - not the ones you write in a workshop.
- If your top themes sit in Executing, you likely value completion, reliability, and tangible outcomes.
- If they sit in Influencing, you value visibility, impact, and momentum.
- If they sit in Relationship Building, connection and trust aren’t optional extras - they are fuel.
- If they sit in Strategic Thinking, depth and future-orientation drive your decisions.
When your goals ignore this wiring, you feel friction.
When your goals align with it, momentum returns.
Here’s the hard truth: if you’re drifting this February, it’s not because you need to try harder - it’s because you built ambition without identity, and since identity drives behaviour, what you actually need isn’t another resolution but clarity about who you already are and how to build from there.
Imagine this instead: rather than forcing motivation, you design goals that match your natural energy, stop comparing your path to people wired differently, understand exactly why certain environments drain you, and make decisions with confidence instead of second guessing.
The gap you’re sitting in
Right now, you’re likely in one of two places:
A. Quietly disappointed in yourself.
B. Pretending you’re “just busy” while the goals slide.
Neither is honest growth.
The real gap isn’t between you and success.
It’s between you and self-understanding.
Stop guessing. Get data.
A CliftonStrengths coaching session gives you:
- A full strengths profile
- Clear insight into your motivational drivers
- A route to a personalised values map
- Practical strategies to redesign your current goals
- A structure for sustainable performance - not short bursts of enthusiasm
Measurable behavioural insight.
February is the perfect moment to recalibrate - before another year quietly passes.
Your Wake-Up Call
If your goals are already fading, you have a choice:
⮽ Repeat the same cycle next January.
☑ Or rebuild now - with clarity and confidence.
Book your CliftonStrengths® coaching session with us today and stop setting goals
that fight against who you are.