better work issue #23

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🌐 Feeling uninspired by your goals? You need impact areas

👋 Hey, it's Susan. Welcome to better work - a personal development newsletter for high-performers who put themselves first so that they can show up for the people they love.

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Do you dread writing goals?

It's not a lack of skill or ambition; when you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything.

👀 Which can become a problem.

Your mind rebels because your goals are misaligned from what you actually want. You're not sure what you want, but these goals are not it.

You need something more holistic that allows for iterative growth while staying ambitious. You need something that includes the why, what, and how.

🌐 You need impact areas.

Impact areas focus less on metrics and more on meaningful change. Impact areas produce better outcomes than goals ever could.

When I started using impact areas with clients, they surpassed their own expectations. That's a bold statement because I work with high-performers who have very high expectations of themselves.

In today's issue, I'm going to explain why goals aren't working for you anymore, how impact areas can actually move the needle, and what impact areas look like in practice with real examples.

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Read the full newsletter below.

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My first coaching client's success felt like a fluke.

I convinced myself that my client's $50,000 salary increase and title promotion were entirely her doing. I just got lucky with an amazing client.

But when another one of my clients got the same result, this was my reaction:

Either I'm the luckiest coach in the world, or something I'm doing is working.

Both can be true. 😉

I can't teach you how to be lucky, but I can teach you how my clients produced these incredible results.

🔑 The key is impact areas.

Before we dive into impact areas, we need to understand why goals are no longer serving us.

Quick context: My coaching clients are leaders at tech companies. They're mid-career with solid track records and supportive partners. Many are full-time working parents. These factors didn't create their results, but they matter for context.

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Why aren't goals working anymore?

⚽ Chasing after goals is a high-performer's favorite sport. But after a while, achievement isn't enough.

Goals become arbitrary, which then become meaningless.

The goal next year is to make more money than this year. Whoopdy-fucking-do.

Every year, you are forced to sit through a performance review where you're told that there's no pay raise or promotion because [insert bullshit excuse]. So you make up bullshit goals for next year.

😩 No wonder we dread goals.

If performance review goals are based on metrics, they're not goals - they're targets.

Targets are aspirational but uncontrollable. Goals are action-based and moderately controllable.

Target = Gain 1,000 subscribers. I can't force people to subscribe.

Goal = Publish 24 newsletter issues by the end of this year. I can write 24 issues.

I covered how to write better goals here.

While goals are more achievable than targets, there's still a problem.

What happens when you run out of things to achieve?

The reflex is to set a more ambitious goal or an arbitrary goal. You flip-flop between the two extremes depending on your mood.

When you run out of ambitious goals, you feel lost and want to burn everything to the ground.

When your goals are arbitrary, they don't have any weight. Achieve them, don't achieve them...

“¯\_(ツ)_/¯“

It doesn't matter because you never cared about them in the first place.

You don't have shitty goals, but they need to be anchored to something meaningful. Otherwise, you'll ditch the goal as soon as life gets stressful.

Impact areas can help.

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Deep dive into impact areas

🌐 Impact areas are transformation zones.

They aren't substitutes for goals; they are spheres where goals live. Your influence and control within an impact area are high.

💪 To create a strong impact area, use the F.I.T. model.

F.I.T. = Focus + Intention + Tactics

• Focus → What are we working on?
• Intention → Why are we doing it?
• Tactics → How are we going to do it?

Impact areas are best used for long-term work. In my experience, the ideal length is a year, but I recommend starting with three months to test them out.

Every client starts with my signature coaching program, which runs for three months. Most clients (75%) renew and work with me for the full year.

🏇 Like a racehorse, my high-performer clients want to shoot out of the gate as soon as the program starts. That urgency to move fast and check the boxes is the tolerance blind spot at play.

Without clear impact areas, the goalpost keeps moving, we forget the purpose, and become more misaligned. Despite their initial frustration, we slow down to clarify what actually matters.

Impact areas are not about metrics or milestones - they are rooted in meaning.

Here is what one of my clients said after reflecting on her impact areas:

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How to stress test impact areas

My coaching method takes a holistic approach to personal and professional development. This makes it difficult to cram everything into one impact area.

Instead of separating professional and personal development, we focus on integration across two impact areas.

👇🏼 Here's an example

Sophia* is a full-time executive at a tech company, a mother of two, and runs a side business.

Sophia's two impact areas for 2026 are:

1. Maintain executive performance at TechVest Company* while holding boundaries against scope creep and additional responsibilities.
2. Build brand awareness for Sophia's Badass Business* through in-person events and speaking engagements.

Let's stress test Sophia's 2026 impact areas with the F.I.T. model.

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Focus - What are we working on?

✅ "Build brand awareness" (for her side business).

✅ "Maintain executive performance" (for her full-time job).

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Intention - Why are we doing it?

✅ To build her confidence as a business owner by putting in the [marketing] reps.

✅ To stay on track for early retirement by financially contributing to her family.

These intentions were extracted from a coaching session.

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Tactics - How are we going to do it?

✅ "...through in-person events and speaking engagements" (expansion).

✅ "...holding boundaries against scope creep and additional responsibilities" (protection).

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Both impact areas work together to build Sophia's authority and wealth beyond her full-time job. The impact areas support each other while still having separate objectives. These impact areas align with her greater mission, which is to build generational wealth for her family and empower the community she cares about.

➡️ Does your mission involve building generational wealth for your family and empowering the community you care about? I can help! Book a Fit Check Call (no strings, no pressure, no bs).

As we finalized Sophia's two impact areas, a smile spread across her face.

"2026 is gonna be a great fucking year," she said.

🤘🏼 Hell yeah it is.

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*Names changed for privacy.

Quick reference

Incorporate impact areas when setting your goals and targets for the new year.

Here's how to tell them apart at a glance:

🌐 Impact Areas

• Quick definition → Zone of influence and transformation
• One word association → Meaning
• Answers the question→ "What am I focusing on?"
• Your level of control → High

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⚽ Goals

• Quick definition → Measurable shifts that signal progress
• One word association → Milestones
• Answers the question→ "What will I complete?"
• Your level of control → Moderate

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🎯 Targets

• Quick definition → Tactical numbers tied to outcomes
• One word association → Metrics
• Answers the question→ "What numbers am I chasing?"
• Your level of control → Low

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💪 Tips on writing strong impact areas:

1. Stress test each impact area with the F.I.T. model. Focus→ What are we working on? Intention → Why are we doing it? Tactics → How are we going to do it?
2. Create two impact areas to integrate professional and personal development.
3. Length of time = start with three months, then extend to one year.
4. Don't let your blind spots derail your progress. Take 5 minutes to find out which blind spot is already getting in your way.​

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📌 Remember: Impact areas don't drive the work → they are the work.

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👀 Want expert eyes on your impact areas for 2026?

Reply to this email with what your impact areas and I'll show you one way to strengthen them. No strings attached.

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🙏 I rely on word of mouth to grow my business, so thank you in advance for your support!

🫡 See you on December 18th - the final issue of 2025!

Take care of yourself,

Susan

Susan Lee

Career coach for high-performers

Founder of Hey Ms. Lee, LLC​

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P.S. Are you still bummed about not meeting your 2025 goals? Me too. That's why Adriana Tica and I are throwing a pity party. 🍷🧁 Bring your favorite comfort drink or snack!

P.P.S. I'm hosting a LinkedIn Live in DC meetup on Saturday, January 10, 2026. If you'll be in the area, reply with "DC" for the details.

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