2024 is the year we stop using productivity to prove our worth — and it starts with our goals.

Performance and production are not the definition of worthiness, yet, it is the bedrock of our society to treat it as such.

We spend almost, if not every day, believing that we must relentlessly be producing something of value to earn our worthiness badge for the day. In other words, if you’re not literally busy 24/7 and performing that busyness like a perfectionist robot, it doesn’t count and you do not earn your worthiness badge that day.

This obsession with production and perfection seeps into every facet of our lives — from our education to our careers to our parenting. It is inescapable. If you are not incessantly trying to outperform your counterparts and yourself every day, society will shout at you from every angle about how much of a failure you are. Sitting down is out of the question. Rest is for the lazy and weak. There is always more to do, more to be, and more to chase. You are never enough in our society, and society reminds us of that every single day.

I wrote an entire book about how white supremacy culture is the root cause of our collective battle with unworthiness as a society and I still wake up every morning with an internal panic about how much time has passed and wishing I hadn’t wasted it sleeping because there is just so much I should be doing. My mind immediately goes into internalized failure and self-depreciation mode as I beat myself up for missing that 5:00 a.m. wake-up call and HIIT workout that is waiting for me if I want to lose this belly fat that I have been conditioned to believe is ugly. My panic increases exponentially as I try to wrestle with what to do with the little time I have before my kids barge in and demand my attention for the rest of the day. Do I rush a workout so I can hate my body less or do I try to crunch in some writing and make an appearance on Twitter so I can keep up with my thought-leader/author colleagues who I perpetually compare my success to? Or, do I look up ways to set up the most Instagram-worthy homeschool lessons for my kids so that I can feel like less of a crap mom in comparison to all of the other homeschool moms who seem to live in some magical fairy world where everything is perfect?

Then, I look up and see the dishes that need to be done, the pile of mail that I have yet to sort through, and the breakfast that needs to be cooked to perfection for my picky eaters. My hands grab my face in frustration and I am reminded of the pimple that grew overnight and my brain immediately thinks of that girl with the glowing skin on Instagram who claims to have healed her skin with, “just one product!”

I’m deep in the self-hatred spiral now, so, naturally, I doomscroll Instagram or TikTok so I can subconsciously continue playing that comparison game and increase that self-hatred as much as possible. Clearly, someone is watching me because I am then bombarded by ads for planners to get my life in order, courses for revenue increases, more acne products, a weight-loss program, and every other insecurity I can think of. Society is shouting at me, “See! You aren’t good enough! But if you just work hard enough you can fix it. If you just chase the standard, you’ll eventually get there.”

Except, you’ll never get there. The standard will just keep moving. But, that’s another article for another time.

This is our culture — the culture that we have not only normalized but grown proud of. We genuinely believe that living in a forever state of never-enoughness and self-hatred is what makes us morally superior to the rest of the world. And it’s that very self-hatred that we capitalize on to run our economy. And while this occurs 365 days of the year, the intensity ramps up every January 1st. Because, duh — if you aren’t creating a new you the moment the clock strikes 12, you’re worthless. (Insert side-eye)

Now, I’m not here to say that we should never set a goal, have a dream, be ambitious, or desire self-improvement in any way. I think it is natural to our humanity to have aspirations and it makes us all the more beautiful. The ability to dream and do remarkable things with our gifts, talents, and passions is one of my favorite things about being a human. We are one of a kind. But, we have also created a hostile culture that has turned the beauty of dreaming, growing, and aspiring into a race for moral superiority, human hierarchy, power, and worth. We have crushed our dreams, our mental health, and our love for ourselves and our neighbors in an attempt to make life a competition about which human is better than the other human. Now, the only life we know is one that is spent trying to prove that we are worthy of existing. We can’t even rest without feeling immense guilt for doing so.

We didn’t do this on purpose. In fact, we didn’t do this at all. We are the children of a society and culture that was built and well-established centuries before us. When you construct an entire society on the idea that one version of a human is better than another version of a human, and that the human you deem as inferior is deserving of mass genocide, enslavement, marginalization, segregation, withheld opportunity, and more, there can only be one result: a culture that exists solely based on every citizen fighting to prove that they aren’t the inferior ones.

And when the new year rolls around, we buy into the idea that “maybe this is the year we finally prove that we aren’t inferior. Maybe this will finally be my year. Maybe this will be the year that I finally measure up and the world finally sees me as worthy.” Society capitalizes off of that weakness and sells us everything in sight that we think we need to invent a new and improved version of ourselves overnight. We can’t set foot in Target the day after Christmas without seeing all of the workout equipment and day planners front and center. We can’t log on to social media without influencers meal-prepping their weight loss meals on camera. With every swipe of our thumbs, yet another person is posting their end-of-the-year highlight reels paired with their no-excuses-hit-the-ground-running goals for January 1st. Once again, there is no room for rest, no room for easing into a new season, no room for simply being. If you are not producing, performing, or laboring and showing the whole world how superior you are for doing so, you are automatically the inferior one, the lazy one, the worthless one.

We didn’t ask for this culture, but it is the culture we have inherited.

It’s not our fault it exists, but we can be the ones who choose to radically change culture for our generation and the generations hereafter. And it can start with something as simple as how we handle the pressure to perform to perfection every new year. It can start with bringing our humanity back to the forefront, daring to dream like a kid again, and setting intentions from a place of self-love rather than self-hatred. Like me, writing this article right now. The hot topics buzzing in the writer/creator space on social media right now are the best way to monetize your writing, what the trends will be for this year, how to double and triple your income, how to become a bestseller, etc. Creators are sharing income reports, strategies, and paid challenges to capitalize on the insecurities most creatives feel from not earning the metrics we have been told are the only measures of success. (Yet, everyone seems to conveniently leave out the fact that most people will never be at the top of their industry because it is physically impossible for all of us to do so. Most of us will be “average” in our success by society’s definition, and that is more than good enough.)

I am one of the average ones. My book is not a bestseller, my social media performs below average, and I don’t make a lot of money at this stage of my writing career. There is a lot to this career that I am not so good at and I know it hinders some of my “success.” But, even though the pressures of white supremacy culture still get to me, I know better than to let them win. I know that average is more than enough — that average is successful and worthy and good because I am successful, worthy, and good simply because I did the best I could.

So, instead of writing this article because all of the gurus are telling me that this is a way to prove my success this year, I am writing it simply to get back to the joy of writing and connecting with my readers through the art of storytelling. I am writing this article in hopes that whoever reads it receives the freedom from society’s unrelenting standards that I have made it my mission to help us all reclaim. Yes, I have a gentle goal of trying to write at least one article per week, but not to add to my success metrics in this work and not to hold myself to some unrealistic standard. This goal will not be forced. This goal will center my humanity and the realities life throws my way. As will all of my goals. I have goals to move my body more, strengthen my body, improve my tennis game, and improve my homeschool lesson planning. I have goals to connect with my husband more, post more of my real life on social media, and unapologetically talk about my book without holding back. Why? Because I am already worthy of everything I am dreaming and desiring. My body is worthy and deserves to be given the TLC she deserves. I am worth everything that brings me joy and tennis is one of those things. My marriage is worth stronger connections and fiery moments of intimacy. My children and I are worthy of a homeschool experience that will make up some of the best memories in our lives. My book is life-changing and worthy of everyone having the opportunity to experience what it has to offer. I do not need to perform these goals to prove my worth, and I do not need to hold myself to rigid, unrelenting, nearly unattainable standards to claim success with these goals. I will not be able to move my body the same way every day, there will be many weeks when an article goes unwritten, and I will have times when I cannot keep up with more than what is required for survival. My book is already successful whether 10 more, 100 more, or 1000 more people discover it and add it to their shelves.

And I will not feel guilty for simply existing, no matter what I have or have not accomplished that day. The fact that I woke up and honored my humanity is all of the accomplishment I need.

This goes for you, too. This is the attitude I hope you leave this article with. I hope you take each one of those goals you set and allow yourself to change them to honor your humanity rather than exist to prove your worth. I hope you allow your goals to flow from the love you have for yourself and the big dreams you have buried deep within your soul. And I hope your example gives your neighbor permission to do the same.

Our simple acts of resistance have the power to change culture. The ripple effect will take place even if we aren’t able to see it in our lifetime. By choosing to resist the status quo and disrupt the standards we have been conditioned to idolize, we are making more of a difference than we can imagine. And, we’re liberating ourselves. Because we deserve it.