You might be exhausted by endless goal-setting because your drive to succeed is actually fueled by achievement trauma—anxiety and the need to prove your worth—instead of genuine curiosity or excitement. Achievement trauma, rooted in relational trauma from always being the emotional caretaker, disconnects you from your own desires and makes your goals feel like performances that drain you before they even begin.
Relational trauma refers to the emotional wounds that come from difficult or harmful experiences in close relationships, often in childhood, which shape how you feel, think, and connect with others — and with yourself. It is not about one isolated event or just ‘bad parenting,’ but about patterns where your needs and desires were overlooked because you had to prioritize others’ emotions, especially if you were the family’s emotional caretaker. This matters deeply here because if you lost touch with your own wants and feelings, your goal-setting might be a replay of those old survival strategies — keeping everyone else safe while you remain unseen and disconnected. Understanding relational trauma is the key to reclaiming your desire, your voice, and your agency in how you move forward.
You might be exhausted by endless goal-setting because your drive to succeed is actually fueled by achievement trauma—anxiety and the need to prove your worth—instead of genuine curiosity or excitement.
Achievement trauma, rooted in relational trauma from always being the emotional caretaker, disconnects you from your own desires and makes your goals feel like performances that drain you before they even begin.
Healing this means learning to recognize how fear interrupts your motivation and gently shifting toward goals that arise from what truly excites you, allowing your nervous system to reclaim safety and your ambition to feel alive.
Before I share this letter, I want you to know about something.
Summary
If your goals for January feel like another performance you’re exhausted before you start, that’s not a motivation problem—it’s a nervous system problem rooted in relational trauma. Women who grew up being the responsible one, the holder, the emotional regulator for everyone else, often lose access to their own desires. This essay is about how Annie Wright, LMFT actually approaches goal-setting — and what she found when she stopped setting goals from fear.
If you spent December holding everyone together—the family, the team, the emotional temperature of every room you walked into—and now you’re staring at January wondering why you can’t seem to want anything for yourself…
Relational trauma refers to psychological injury that occurs within the context of important relationships, particularly those with primary caregivers during childhood. Unlike single-incident trauma, relational trauma involves repeated experiences of emotional neglect, inconsistency, manipulation, or abuse within bonds where safety and trust should have been foundational.
Achievement Trauma
Achievement trauma describes the psychological pattern in which a person’s drive to accomplish becomes organized around managing underlying anxiety, proving worth, or earning love — rather than genuine desire or curiosity. The goals themselves may be real, but the engine powering them is distress rather than aliveness. Recognizing this distinction is often the first step toward building a healthier, more sustainable relationship with ambition.
As I’ve mentioned many times in this Substack, I write the content I most need—or that I’ve worked through and am still learning. This is particularly true for the January goal-setting content I’ve been sharing with you this month.
Up until about five years ago, I was the classic example of making a long list of resolutions that didn’t come from my soul. They didn’t come from my heart. They were completely informed by fear.
Fear around my body and how it was perceived in the world. Fear about finances—this maladaptive belief that there would never be enough, that it would all be taken away from me. Fear about proving myself professionally. And social influence around what I thought I should be doing.
It’s a tale as old as time, I know. But for me, it correlates to something deeper: for most of my life, the fuel for my drive and ambition was fear, not a sense of generativity or mission or connection to my intuition.
Inevitably, the goals I created from that place were also the goals I created in impossible quantities. More than three people could accomplish in a year—or even two years. I was always setting myself up for failure. And then came the self-flagellation when I inevitably fell short.
Even when I went after those goals with everything I had, the amount and the pace felt deeply punitive. It would lead me to self-soothe in some pretty maladaptive ways, just to get a break from the strain.
Needless to say, it wasn’t a great recipe for goal-setting. Or for visioning my life for the next year.
So what changed?
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About five years ago, I moved through even deeper layers of my relational trauma recovery work. I did some profound EMDR processing and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy that finally—finally—rewired the deep-seated fear channels in my brain tied to money, performance, and worth.
That’s when I began to feel a power shift. A shift in my way of being in the world. A shift in how I approached everything related to my profession, my finances, and the goals I set in my personal life.
The shift meant I was reducing the fuel of fear and finding a different fuel. One that felt more like it was coming from a deep knowing—a sense of mission and purpose and genuine desire to take care of myself and my body.
This was around the time I started to re-engage with my spiritual side, too.
That part of me had been present as a kid and as a young adolescent. But then I really amputated it off as I coped with my unresolved childhood trauma through drive, achievement, and academics. It got put on the backburner for a very, very long time.
It would crop up occasionally. Like the day I had both the LSAT study book and Clarissa Pinkola Estés’s Women Who Run With the Wolves sitting side by side on my tiny desk in my yurt at Esalen. But then it would go underground again, because I didn’t prioritize it.
About five years ago, though, everything shifted. Not only did I do a very deep layer of relational trauma recovery work with multiple evidence-based modalities, but I also started reconnecting and reintegrating that soulful side of me.
The combination of pursuing my goals less from fear and more from a sense of generativity and mission—combined with the integration of this intuitive, soulful part of myself—has totally transformed the way I approach goal-setting.
Instead of treating my goals now as a list of things that must be done in order to keep me safe, keep my life afloat, or that feel like the goals I should be setting, I actually spend quite a bit of time in November reflecting on what I’ve accomplished and what I’d like to craft of my life in the coming year.
Why November?
Because I spend the month of December building my vision boards.
I know that might sound pretty woo-woo—spending a month building vision boards. But let me explain.
I treat vision boards like an art form.
The vision boards I made in 2022 were poster-sized. One for my personal life, one for my professional life. I bought frames for them—poster-sized frames—and I kept them in front of my laptop, near my desk, every single day. They were informed by how I want to feel, and less about the concrete accomplishments, though there were very deliberate images of what I wanted to achieve.
Let me give you some examples of what I put on those boards.
A picture of my dream house—the one I ended up purchasing in my dream town through an incredible story and confluence of circumstances. (That could be an entire Substack letter someday.)
Selling my company. Which I did at the top of 2025.
Publishing a book. Never did I imagine that a top literary agent and a top publishing house would reach out to me without me ever sending in a proposal.
I’m not kidding when I say that the bulk of what was on those two vision boards came true.
I know that sounds wild to believe. But my husband and my best girlfriends are witness to it.
Explore More on Relational Trauma Recovery
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All new writing—essays that name what’s been invisible, workbooks that actually shift what feels stuck, and honest letters about the real work beneath the work, and Q&As where you can ask your burning questions (anonymously, always)—lives there now, within a curated curriculum designed to move you from insight to action.
If you’re tired of holding it all up alone, you’re invited to step into a space where your nervous system can finally start to settle, surrounded by women doing this foundation work alongside you.
). Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self. W. W. Norton &#
; Company.Shapiro, F. (
). Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures. Guilford Press.Dore, J., Turnipseed, B., Dwyer, S., et al. (
). Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP): Patient Demographics, Clinical Data and Outcomes in Three Large Practices Administering Ketamine with Psychotherapy. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.Herman, J. L. (
). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence—From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Basic Books.Jurkovic, G. J. (
). Lost Childhoods: The Plight of the Parentified Child. Brunner/Mazel.Porges, S. W. (
). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. Norton &#
Why do I feel so much pressure to achieve my goals perfectly, and how does that impact my ability to actually reach them?
This pressure often stems from a deep-seated need for external validation, common in those who experienced childhood emotional neglect. It can lead to procrastination or burnout, making it harder to consistently work towards your aspirations. Learning to set compassionate, realistic goals can help you break free from this cycle.
I often feel like my worth is tied to my accomplishments. How can I set goals that truly serve me, rather than just seeking external approval?
It’s common for high-achievers with relational trauma to link their self-worth to their achievements. To shift this, focus on setting goals that align with your intrinsic values and personal growth, rather than what you think others expect. This process helps you build a sense of internal validation and purpose.
How can I stop self-sabotaging my goals, especially when I’m on the verge of success?
Self-sabotage often arises from unconscious fears, such as the fear of success, change, or even not being ‘enough’ once a goal is met. Recognizing these underlying patterns is the first step. Practicing self-compassion and breaking down large goals into smaller, manageable steps can help you navigate these anxieties and maintain momentum.
Is it normal to feel anxious about setting new goals, even when I know they’re good for me?
Yes, it’s absolutely normal to feel anxiety when embarking on new goals, especially if past experiences have taught you that effort doesn’t always lead to desired outcomes or if you fear failure. This anxiety can be a protective mechanism. Acknowledging these feelings without judgment and focusing on the process rather than just the outcome can be very helpful.
How do I set goals that feel authentic to my desires, instead of just following what I think I ‘should’ do?
Many driven, ambitious women struggle with distinguishing their true desires from societal or familial expectations. To find your authentic goals, practice tuning into your inner voice through journaling or mindfulness. Ask yourself what truly energizes you and aligns with the life you want to build, independent of external pressures.
Further Reading on Relational Trauma
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As a licensed psychotherapist (LMFT #95719), trauma-informed executive coach, and relational trauma specialist with over 15,000 clinical hours, she guides ambitious women — including Silicon Valley leaders, physicians, and entrepreneurs — in repairing the psychological foundations beneath their impressive lives. Annie is the founder and former CEO of Evergreen Counseling, a multimillion-dollar trauma-informed therapy center she built, scaled, and successfully exited. A regular contributor to Psychology Today, her expert commentary has appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, Inc., NBC, and The Information. She is currently writing her first book with W.W. Norton.
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“You can outrun your past with achievement for only so long before it catches up with you. Strong & Stable is the conversation that helps you stop running.”
— Annie Wright, LMFT
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Strong & Stable — Annie Wright, LMFT
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