When your goals don’t match your values
J’apprends le français, mais pas très vite
I have this dream of being trilingual—English, Spanish, and French.
In theory, it’s a beautiful goal. In reality? My Spanish is passable at best, and my French… let’s just say I’d be insulting a French 5-year-old if I claimed we were on the same level.
It’s not for lack of trying. I do want to learn French. I’ve studied the grammar, downloaded the apps, and I’ve paid for more than one course. Meanwhile, my husband has essentially become fluent over the past two years. Watching him carry on full conversations with ease is both inspiring and, if I’m honest, a little deflating.
Because I know I’m capable of it. So what gives?
Here’s the truth: My goals are not aligned with my present-day values.
Six months ago, I would’ve told you French was a priority. But looking at my life lately, the values that actually show up day to day are:
Minimizing stress and finding stability at work (hello, new job)
Recovering from my eating disorder (six months in!)
Committing to fitness—marathon training and Pilates
Reigniting my side projects like Connect with Me
Then—language learning
It is there. Just... lower on the list.
And that’s why I keep skipping my lessons. It’s not laziness. It’s not a lack of discipline. It’s misalignment.
When your goals and values don’t match, follow-through gets hard. You’ll feel stuck or guilty, or both. You’ll keep writing “study French” on your to-do list and rescheduling it three days in a row.
So here’s the reframing that helped me:
It’s not that I can’t learn French. It’s that right now, it’s not high enough on my values list to compete with everything else I care about more.
And that’s okay.
I’ll come back to it. I’ll keep at it, but perhaps with less intensity. Less room for me to feel like I’m going to let myself down. I can set a smaller goal. But for now, I’m letting go of the guilt and choosing to prioritize what matters most to me right now, not what I said would matter six months ago.