Why does reaching a goal sometimes feel empty?

Because not every goal you achieve is actually yours. SMART goals are built to be measured. HEART goals are built to be true. When you hit a SMART goal your heart was never in, the body knows, and so does that flat 'is this all there is?' feeling that follows.

Have you ever accomplished something big and had it fall flat as a pancake inside? That "well, I finally did it, now what?" I've felt it, even after hitting goals that looked great on paper. SMART goals have their place. But there's something I think matters far more, and that's a HEART goal. The idea comes from Jim Kwik, and I want to take it a little deeper.

What a HEART goal is

A HEART goal is:

• Healthy
• Enduring
• Alluring, something that genuinely intrigues you
• Relevant to your heart's purpose
• Truth, the truth of your being reflected back in it

The last one matters most. A goal can tick every SMART box, be specific and measurable and important, and still leave your heart somewhere else.

The price of staying where your heart isn't

In my last years in a corporate job, I hit my goals. Achieving was never the hard part. But the wins didn't have the glow a thing has when it comes from the heart. Something in me was calling me toward the life I have now, and for years I resisted, because I was safe where I was.

Here's the catch about that kind of safety. The body keeps a ledger. Bruce McEwen, a researcher at Rockefeller University, spent his career showing that chronic stress puts an inflammatory load on the body, the kind of slow burn that quietly undermines your health from the inside. Living where you don't belong, and overriding what's true for you to stay there, is exactly that kind of load.

Faith Kipyegon and the woman's four-minute mile

I learned about Faith Kipyegon while researching my book. For decades everyone "knew" the human body couldn't run a mile in under four minutes, until Roger Bannister did it in 1954, simply because he didn't accept the rule. Within a year, many men had followed. No woman has done it yet.

In June 2025, Kipyegon set out to try, in a special event built around the attempt. She ran 4:06.42, faster than her own world record, and came up just short. When she finished she lay down on the track, having given everything, and said: I know that it's possible. I didn't do it today, but I know that it's possible. That is a HEART goal. Healthy, enduring, alluring, relevant, and above all true, the truth that a woman's body can do this. (Sources: CNN and NPR, June 2025.)

The Truth Practice

You can give your all to a SMART goal without giving it your heart. And I believe that when you release your heart from a goal that was never truly yours, you also release your body from some of that stress load. Here's a simple practice to tell the difference:

• Pick one goal you're carrying right now. Hold it in your mind.
• Look yourself in the eye, in a mirror if you have one, and say something true and kind to yourself. If "I am beautiful, my essence is beautiful" is hard to mean, find the words you can mean.
• Now bring the goal back, and breathe into it. Notice your body. Do you feel open, expanded, lit up? Or is there a flatness?

Either answer is fine. The point is the truth. Aliveness means it's a HEART goal. Flatness means you can still get it done, you just don't have to hand it your heart. Then smile at yourself and finish with three words: I follow my truth.

Kristin Milan

Coach and author for women in the third act of life, holding faith and consciousness in the same hand. Master's in Social Work, degree in Psychology, HeartMath trained, and nearly five decades engaged with the science of change. She writes about outgrowing the aging default and coming home to a wholeness you already belong to.