You've heard of Goals, but have you heard of Anti-Goals?
Anti-goals, when paired with goal setting, help you push your limits without losing yourself in the process.
My first post of 2025 was all about goal setting and how to shift your perspective from focusing on outcome goals to focusing on process goals. I still believe that shift in perspective is crucial for runners - it helps ground your goals (and, in some cases, your happiness) in aspects you can actually control. After all, you can’t always predict race day conditions, but you can control how consistently you train, how well you fuel, and how much you improve your technique.
When I released that post, someone left a comment that pointed me in the direction of anti-goals. It was a new concept to me, but one that immediately caught my attention. In fact, it was so intriguing that I think it’s worth talking about.
The Slippery Slope
When you first started running, chances are you began with small, outcome-based goals but somewhere along the way, you caught the running bug and became more ambitious. Running your first 5k soon became completing your first half marathon which led to ultras. What started as a hobby slowly became a lifestyle. You began dedicating more time to running, and before you knew it, that lifestyle started eating into other parts of your life - your time, energy, money and even your relationships were effected.
Running became your identity. The only topics you could talk about with friends and colleagues were running-related. You found yourself spending more and more money on gear: the latest shoes, race entries, and that “must-have” recovery device that promised to have you in the best condition in no time. You started skipping social events because you needed to get into bed early for next morning’s long run. Unfortunately, that same long run left you so exhausted for the rest of the day and you barely had the energy for your scheduled date night, leading to complaints from your partner about how running always seemed to come first.
You’re in the best shape of your life. Your dedication rivals some of the pros. But at what cost? What did you lose along the way? Friendships? Quality time with loved ones? The ability to enjoy life outside of running?
Is it all worth it?
The Birth of Anti-Goals
Anti-goals are a concept introduced by Andrew Wilkinson and his business partner, Chris, in a blog post where Andrew pulled back the curtain on one of their goal-setting discussions. Like most people, they found themselves setting ambitious goals around growth and revenue. However, as they dug deeper, they realised that what they really wanted was to enjoy the process of building up their company. Sure, focusing on enjoyment might mean their peers would end up wealthier or more “successful” by traditional standards, but Andrew and Chris noticed that those same people were leading objectively worse lives. They were stuck in endless, boring meetings, chronically sleep-deprived, and with personal lives in shambles.
So, instead of focusing on what they wanted to achieve, Andrew and Chris flipped the script. They started by defining what they didn’t want their lives to look like. Packed calendars full of meetings. Excessive travel. Being stuck in the office all day. Chronic fatigue. From there, they created a set of guidelines, which they named anti-goals, to ensure they never drifted into a life which they wouldn’t enjoy. For example, they decided to limit meetings to two hours a day, avoid morning meetings altogether, and prioritise calls over in-person meetings. These anti-goals weren’t about achieving something; they were about protecting what mattered most to them: having fun.
In essence, anti-goals are a set of guiding principles designed to keep you from drifting into areas you don’t want to go. They act as guardrails, ensuring that as you move forward, you don’t inadvertently lose parts of yourself, or your life, that you never intended to sacrifice.
The Symbiosis of Goals and Anti-Goals
Goals are good. They give us direction, a path for improvement, and a way to focus on what matters most. When we achieve them, they can bring a deep sense of fulfilment and pride.
However, focusing solely on achieving a goal, no matter the cost, isn’t good. If we’re so driven by the pursuit of improvement that we neglect the people around us, or worse, sacrifice the things that truly matter, then everyone loses in the end.
That’s why I believe every set of goals should be accompanied by a set of anti-goals. Think of it like this: In my pursuit of achieving my goals, what do I not want to lose? What’s more important than the goal itself? What am I not willing to give up to get there?
Goals and anti-goals work together. One tells you what to aim for, while the other acts as a safeguard ensuring you don’t lose what’s truly valuable along the way. This combination creates holistic success. Did you achieve your goal without sacrificing your relationships, your health, or your joy? True success isn’t just hitting a target; it’s hitting the target while staying true to yourself and what matters most.
Join the Conversation
Anti-goals are still a relatively new concept, having been introduced only in 2017. So far, I haven’t met many people who’ve used them consistently, let alone in the context of trail or ultra running. If you have used anti-goals in the past I invite you to post your experiences in the comments section below.
And if you haven’t, why not give it a try? The next time you’re planning your training block or signing up for a race, ask yourself: What don’t I want to lose in the process? I’d be more than happy to hear how anti-goals work for you!
I take a step back. Not having goals is the purest anti-goal. At the risk of being shunned by the no-goal shamers, I find that running with no race / goal is better for my mental heath. Then, if a goal looks interesting enough, so be it. But it will never be my main aim for pursuing this. There are other ways I try to keep motivated and disciplined. I do fail miserably often, but I find this works better for me.
Subconsciously, anti-goals have kept me away from ever getting involved with a running coach. To me it removes the experimentation and joy out of running. So I guess that these are anti-goals of mine, not wanting to lose the joy of running and not wanting to lose the ability to experiment.
I've talked with people in my running community who somehow felt that training for a major goal, more often than not under the guidance of a coach, removed the fun of running for them as the focus was stripped down to maximizing performance on some major event. And this came at the risk of other commitments or just the sheer joy of running. Maybe mine is a skewed opinion based on a very small pool of information, but I think that this post hits the nail on the head. When discussing with a running coach it is equally important to discuss both goals and anti-goals.