Setting Goals in White Water: Commitment Matters More Than Certainty

Every January, the same scenarios play out. Gyms are packed. Diets start on Mondays. Vision boards are dusted off. And by mid-February, most of it is gone.

The data is unforgiving: the vast majority of New Year’s resolutions don’t survive the winter. Not because people don’t care, but because life intervenes, motivation fades, and old habits creep back in. There’s a risk of letting the same thing happen in our businesses.

I hear some version of this question from leaders constantly: “How do we set meaningful goals when everything feels unstable?” When markets are shifting, politics are unpredictable, supply chains are fragile, and yesterday’s assumptions no longer hold.

My answer is simple, though, like that resolution to hit the weights this year, not always easy to stick with: uncertainty is not a reason to abandon goals, but to rethink how we approach them.

Planning is never pointless

One of the most dangerous ideas in times of uncertainty is that change is happening too fast, that planning is pointless. Some leaders think, “I’ll just stay flexible and see what happens.”

Sounds adaptive, right? It isn’t.

In fact, it’s one of the fastest ways to drift.

At WhiteWater, we’ve spent years working with leaders who are navigating real-world turbulence and volatility. In Welcome to Class 6 Rapids: Scenario Planning for Uncertain and Turbulent Times, we argue that as conditions become more chaotic, clarity of intent matters more, not less.

In White Water, you don’t abandon direction; you tighten your focus on your destination. But you must also accept that the route to get there will not be linear. Goals give you purpose and direction. They tell you where you’re trying to go. Agility is about how you will respond when conditions change along the way.

You need both goals and agility, direction and flexibility, to stay the course.

Goals can bend to reality

Where organizations (and individuals) get into trouble is when goals are treated as rigid promises instead of living commitments.

Think about fitness resolutions. Someone sets a goal to “get in shape,” goes to the gym hard for two weeks, gets sore, misses a few sessions, and then decides the whole thing was a failure. That logic makes no sense in business, and yet we use it all the time.

If you set a three-year growth goal and circumstances force you to adjust the path, that’s not failure. If you aim to grow 10x and only grow 5x, that’s not failure either. That’s progress; extraordinary progress!

The real failure is quitting when reality doesn’t align with your original plan.

Agility without commitment is drift

Agility has become a buzzword. Like most, it’s at risk of misuse.

So, to clarify: agility does not mean constantly changing direction. It means staying committed to the destination while being flexible about the route.

We explored this directly in Building Agility Into Strategy, where we argue that agility only works when it’s anchored in clear goals, priorities, and decision rights. Without that foundation, organizations don’t become agile; they become reactive.

In practice, that means:

• Setting goals that are directional, not brittle

• Revisiting assumptions regularly

• Adjusting tactics without abandoning intent

• Accepting that progress will look messy

I often describe this as trying to move a big ball of chaos roughly in the right direction. It wobbles. It veers. Sometimes it rolls backward for a bit. But over time, it moves. 

Persistence is your quiet advantage

One of the least glamorous, yet most powerful, capabilities in leadership is persistence.

Not the dramatic, grind-through-anything version. The quieter kind. The kind that shows up again after a missed week at the gym, or a missed target at work. It’s that chin-up attitude that notes a miss, and asks: What did we learn? And then recommits. 

This is where goal-setting intersects with execution discipline, another theme we’re obsessed with. Direction matters, but so does follow-through, especially when conditions aren’t cooperating.

Most organizations don’t fail because they chose the wrong goals. They fail because they stop working toward them intentionally.

Set 2026 goals differently

As you set goals this year, both personally and professionally, I’d encourage you to think of them through a new lens.

Instead of waiting for a predictable future to commit, ask: what destination matters enough to keep paddling, even when things change, or we hit that unexpected patch of white water? 

And give yourself permission to be bold, and stretch yourself. Expect the path to change. Measure progress honestly. And when you stumble (as everyone does), don’t confuse adaptation with failure.

That’s how you move forward: one stroke at a time, even though the river won’t stop flowing.