Many professionals are entering the year in silent disappointment. You’re not just tired, you're disillusioned and are harbouring a silent guilt as you prepare to recycle your professional vision board or goals list by scratching out 2025 with 2026.
We tend to associate burnout with overwork, but it is often the result of unprocessed grief. The kind that simmers under the surface when goals are missed, plans derail, and momentum slows without explanation.
A few years ago, I spent December 27th rewriting my goals with fervour like I was on the run from the ghost of my own underachievement. I'd flopped a big pitch in Q2, ghosted my fitness goals and missed two key deadlines that still haunt me.
So I did what overachievers do: I tried to redeem the year by fixing it. I made lists, timelines, and colour-coded calendars and found myself a little overwhelmed whilst doing it, until I watched a YouTube video about realistic goal setting and planning that completely shifted the way I think.
One of the key things I learnt was that my plans were not built on a realistic foundation. And I know I’m not alone, many professionals are entering the year in silent disappointment. You’re not just tired, you're disillusioned and are harbouring a silent guilt as you prepare to recycle your professional vision board or goals list by scratching out 2025 with 2026.
We tend to associate burnout with overwork, but it is often the result of unprocessed grief. The kind that simmers under the surface when goals are missed, plans derail, and momentum slows without explanation.
Psychological research confirms that grief does not only follow bereavement. It also arises when people experience unmet expectations, professional setbacks, or a prolonged sense of underperformance.
Before you blame yourself for what did not happen this year, consider this possibility: perhaps it was not your motivation that failed but rather the structure that supported it. Re-evaluate what was not visible on your quarterly reports, for example: limitations beyond your control, restrictions based on your values, and systems that no longer work.
If your goals fell through, ask: What wasn't captured on the quarterly report?
Maybe you hit a bandwidth ceiling, not because you lacked discipline, but because you were juggling conflicting priorities at work and home.
Maybe your values evolved, and what once felt urgent no longer aligned with who you are or what you want.
Maybe your system was built for a different season and needs more margin, delegation, or flexibility than you realised. Instead of fixing what went wrong, design a better structure based on what you now know.
When we experience disappointment at work, missed targets, a failed launch, a tough year with no tangible wins, we don’t always call it grief. But that doesn't make it any less real. We numb, we distract, we over-schedule. We try to strategise our way out of sadness, but unacknowledged grief doesn’t disappear, it metastasises and shows up as cynicism, burnout, detachment, and shame.
If you're reading this with a pit in your stomach or a lump in your throat, I want you to know: You're not weak for feeling disappointed or ungrateful for being tired, you're human. It's ok to grieve the projects that didn’t get funded or the goals that lost their meaning halfway through. Give yourself permission to feel your way through the wreckage and find wisdom in the rubble as you re-evaluate and build a structure that can support your goals based on what you know now.
This month, as the new year settles in,resolve to stop hustling for your worth. You are not your deadlines or an empty calendar. You are not your unlaunched project, you are very much still here. So don’t punish yourself with bigger goals, reward yourself with better ones.
You don’t need to start the new year with a roar. You can start with a whisper, a stretch or a breath, not because you’ve earned it, but because you’re worthy of it. You always have been and always will be.
