Reflecting on… nested goals

I first heard about nested goals (or at least heard of that term) from Sarah Hart Unger, doctor/blogger/podcaster/book author! I like Sarah: her podcast, her book, her approach to achieving goals. Her life is drastically different from mine, yet I still feel drawn to her like a kindred spirit of some sort.

For the past couple of years, though, I have followed Plan With Laken’s framework for goal setting. Coincidentally, I first heard (of) Laken on Sarah’s podcast, Best Laid Plans! Laken talks about having overarching annual goals that are then broken into quarterly goals (or just right from annual into monthly) and then weekly and daily action steps much like Sarah. I used to skip the quarterly, it always felt like an unnecessary in between.

But this year I decided to try Sarah’s nested approach (similar to Laken’s framework except now with the quarterly breakdown layer mixed in) when setting my 2026 goals. I talked about my feelings on it in my Q1 reflection post HERE, and at that time I still wasn’t so sure about it…but now? In theory, I love it. But in actuality, I’m still on the fence! So I’m going to use this post to work through my thoughts…

Nested goals in a nut shell

I kind of already outlined it, but essentially, nested goals are goals that get broken down into smaller digestible/achievable chunks as you get down to smaller time horizons. So it goes like this:

• Big annual goal
  • Breaks down into four quarterly goals (or 12 monthly goals)
    • Quarterly goal breaks down to three monthly goals
      • Monthly goal breaks down to weekly tasks
        • Weekly tasks break down to daily tasks (if applicable)

Hence the nested description.

So…what are my thoughts?

As I said, in theory, I’m a fan. And I honestly AM a fan. It totally makes sense. And it does make achieving certain goals more doable.

My problem is that I have so many ideas and I want to do them all. This is my problem in general, and also when it comes to doing nested goals. I’ve talked about taking on too much in many a blog post so I won’t go on at length here. But nested goals somehow make me feel limited on each time horizon. Which maybe (probably) IS good for me but it makes me feel itchy…

That said, for certain goals—like reading all of Lucy Score’s back list in a year—it’s more straight forward. There were 36 books to read so I have to read 9 books a quarter, so 3 books a month, one book every 10 days, 10% every day. But those are the types of goals I don’t really need help with. I need help with the big hairy goals.

Big hairy goals are often very nebulous. They can be approached in a myriad of ways, with so many options for action steps, projects, habits, etc. How on earth can I possibly break this down? Or break it down in the right way? How can I choose one way? Do I have to? Can I change my mind halfway through?

I think my thoughts are that I’m overthinking it. It’s not like I’m going to go to jail if I don’t follow this framework perfectly. Right?

Will I continue doing nested goals?

The conclusion that I’ve come to is that I like the idea of nested goals (including the quarterly that I’d been avoiding), but there are no hard and fast rules saying I have to apply these to every goal.

So I am going to do nested goals when it makes sense to. Or I might have an annual goal that won’t take all year and maybe is just a quarterly goal. Some goals are really projects. Or habits that I want to work on for the entire year and don’t need to be broken down much, if at all. And I’m allowed to throw in a stand alone goal that I just work on for a month that I think of mid-year and doesn’t tie back to anything.

All in all, the thing that matters most (to me) is that I’m doing something to move me forward, in different areas, in some way. Often times I feel very stuck in my life, in the day to day, and I’m the type of person who would probably just continue marching on if I didn’t have something else pushing me to DO something. And for me, goals (nested or otherwise) are that something.

Have you tried nested goals?

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