Stop Locking In. Start Sustaining Your Shifts.
It is September. And if you have been on social media at all this month, you have seen it: lock-in season. Final quarter push. Crush everything you did not get to in Q1 through Q3.
I want to offer you a reframe.
This morning, I was in a Monday meetup group as part of a Consistency Challenge my girlfriend Tameika is running. In this group we are working out together, meal prepping, getting our mindsets right. In today’s meet up, everyone went around and rated themselves on how their week had gone.
Most of us were giving ourselves fives and sixes, being hard on ourselves for the things we did not do. Then a woman named Portia rated herself a nine. When the coach asked why, she said, and I’m paraphrasing: "Because I made goals that I knew were achievable."
And something clicked. I have been teaching something called the Sustainable Intentions Formula for years, and I realized at that moment I was not even using it on myself.
Later in the breakout group, we decided to take that reframe one step further: What does getting a ten look like for just next week? Not after four months of consistency. Not after the program is done. Just: what does a ten look like from where I am right now, to where I will be at the beginning of next week?
That is the energy I want to bring into this new season.
"Self-reflection is the school of wisdom."Baltasar Gracian
What Is the Sustainable Intentions Formula?
I created this framework sometime around 2020 or 2021, during the pandemic, when I was deep in the start of my intuitive coaching work. I first ran it as an intention-setting workshop at the end of the year. I kept seeing people create these really intense New Year's resolutions and then beat themselves up or drop them entirely by January.
I started looking at where I was actually seeing the needle shift, in my clients and in myself, and I noticed something: when our goals are tied to our core values, it is so much easier to show up for them. And when we stop trying to go from zero to a hundred all at once, we actually start meeting them.
The Sustainable Intentions Formula has seven steps. Each one is about getting radically honest with yourself and meeting yourself there with grace.
"We cannot harm ourselves into change."Estyubuntu
The Seven Steps
Intention
Write a sentence summary of your goal and connect it to one of your core values. If you cannot link it to a value, that is important information. It will be much harder to convince yourself to show up when you are tired or the excuses start coming.
Bare Min / Bare Max
Your Bare Min is the absolute least you can do and still say you showed up. Your Bare Max is the ceiling: the most you will do, even on a great day, until you have built the endurance for more. Both are essential to make this accessible and sustainable.
Time
How long will you experiment with this Bare Min and Bare Max before you recalibrate? Give yourself a defined window. Ask: did I actually show up for this? Then adjust. Your old Bare Max becomes your new Bare Min once consistency is real.
Anchor
Find something already in your routine, something so automatic you never need a reminder, and attach your intention to it. Anchor it to what already works. Be honest about whether you will be tired before or after.
Permission Slip
Name the excuses you know you will give yourself and then write permission slips that remove those obstacles in advance. Sometimes this step makes you realize your Bare Min is still too high. That is useful information, and an invitation to go back and adjust that step.
Accountability
Tell someone about your goal, specifically. Do not assume they will know how to support you. Ask for exactly what you need. Self-care culture is community care. Magic happens in the collective.
Celebrate
Have your celebration plan ready before you even begin. We are so addicted to finishing something and immediately creating the next goal. Stop and acknowledge the shift. Fortify it. As the saying from Parks and Rec goes: “treat yourself.” We punish ourselves enough in this society.
Why the Bare Max Is the Step Everyone Skips
This is the piece most people underestimate, so let me make it real.
The Bare Max is not about limiting yourself. It is about building trust with yourself so that when you say you will show up, you actually do. Consistently. Until the habit is simply part of who you are.
Neurologically, this makes sense: how you finish an activity programs how you will feel about approaching it next time. We want that feeling to be: that was manageable. I can do that again.
What This Looks Like for Me Right Now
I am in South East Asia, and rainy season is coming. For those of you who do not live somewhere tropical, that means the next few months include: more indoors, more rain, less easy access to long outdoor walks. I am also still in recovery from surgery four months ago. I feel 10x more energized than I did post-surgery, but I know my energy levels are not back to where they were. I am being gentle with myself about that.
So my seasonal intentions are about health and vitality, working toward being fit at 40. But the sustainable version of that, for right now, looks like this: working out with my private fitness coach, Mali four times a week, being part of Tameika's Consistency Challenge, showing up weekly to that live when I can, and scheduling in my calendar when to watch the replays, and leaning on a meal prep service so I do not have to fight decision fatigue around food. That last one has been such a privilege and such a shift. I do not have to think about what I am cooking or buying, and that has given me and my husband such a gift.
For me, the aim is not to lock in. It looks like setting myself up for the season to be in devotion to my body the way I have invested in and devoted to my writing, my coaching business, and to other areas in my life.
Three Journaling Prompts for This Season
Where are you letting grind culture influence your intentions and goals right now? How can you show up for yourself with more empathy and grace this season?
If you are being honest with yourself, how have you let perfectionism run the show? How has that fueled your relationship with procrastination?
Zoom out and look at your own story arc, not just the climaxes but all of it. How have you actually celebrated your milestones so far? What would a real celebration practice look like in your life right now?
I would invite you to sit with one of these at a time. Not all three at once. The first when you begin your Sustainable Intentions work, the second as you move into your next goal, the third when you are ready to celebrate how far you have come.
And wherever you are in the world right now, whether it is fall, spring, dry season, or the beginning of rain, I hope this seasonal shift is a gentle one. Not a locked-in one.
Get the Sustainable Intentions Worksheet
A one-page printable sheet with all seven steps so you can work through your own goals with clarity and grace.
