Write your anti-vision -
why 'what you don't want' is more powerful than any goal

The moment you ask yourself: 'is that it?'

There is this one moment. Maybe in the car at night, maybe on your way to work in the morning. You stare ahead, traffic is at a standstill, and suddenly you ask yourself: is that it now? School, training, job, bills. And somewhere between the emails you do not care about and the colleagues you did not choose, this quiet sentence rises up: I wanted more.

You are not here because you are lazy. You are here because you let yourself get distracted. You lost the fight for your own dreams and looked for safety in other peoples dreams instead. You went to school, got the job, and now you are sitting in the exact life everyone else thought was great, except you.

In your head you have bills that show up every month. Work that bores you. Student loans swept under the rug, piling up. No time, no energy, to be healthy, to start something of your own, to actually give life everything you have. Those thoughts split into a thousand more and lock you into a tight state of stress and survival.

Life loses its edge. Days become mechanical. Opportunities get rare, because you no longer have the antenna for them. The first honest step out of this hole is not a new goal. It is disgust. Disgust at the spot you have steered yourself into.

Why most people are stuck in other peoples goals

Ask yourself honestly: whose life are you living right now? The truth is uncomfortable. Most people carry a goal that is not theirs at all. It is the expectations of their parents, the wish list of the neighbours, what school declared sensible, or the picture social media is currently selling as success.

The problem with external goals: they only hold as long as someone is watching. The moment you are alone, the motivation collapses. You work hard, you push, and at the end of the day you wonder why you feel nothing. Because the goal is not yours.

It is incredibly hard to know what you want when every role model around you does the same thing: commute, sleep, scroll, complain. But it is very easy to know what you do not want, the moment you look closely. That is exactly where the shortcut sits.

Watch the crowd, and see what you do not want

All you need to do is watch the crowd. See where mindless behaviour leads, because it does not look pretty. On a walk. In the supermarket. In the open-plan office. On the weekend in the hardware store parking lot. Every single day you get plenty of chances to see what you do not want.

Look at the faces. Look at the bodies. Look at how people talk to their partners, how they snap at their kids, how they hold their phone. Look at what they buy, what they eat, what they complain about. Not to look down on them. But to ask yourself one honest question: is that the goal?

It is much easier to know what you do not want, because you have either lived it or seen it up close. What you do want is often based purely on fantasy. On a Pinterest board. On an ad. And fantasy is weak fuel. Negative clarity, on the other hand, is concrete, physical, instantly tangible.

Key thought: Knowing what you do not want is direct experience. Knowing what you do want is usually just an idea. That is why every honest path starts with the no, not with the yes.

The anti-vision: brutally honest on paper

Now it gets concrete. Grab a notebook. No phone, no Notion, no browser tab. A real book and a pen. Sit down and write an anti-vision for your future.

Write down everything you do not want. And write down why. Be concrete, not poetic. I do not want a relationship where we have nothing left to say. I do not want to wake up with a headache every morning. I do not want 25 kilos of extra weight on my hips. I do not want to work for a boss whose wife I would not want to listen to. Exactly that direct.

You are supposed to feel uncomfortable when you read it back. If your stomach gets warm with shame or anger, you are doing it right. That negative energy is fuel. Use it to launch yourself in the opposite direction. Commit to making sure that never happens again.

Only then do you flip the page and write down what you want to focus on. Which goal is meaningful enough that you would get uncomfortable for it? Which skills do you have to learn to get there? And above all: why do you want it in the first place? If your why does not pull you out of bed, it is not strong enough.

And if family or friends do not believe you can do it: even better. A goal that everyone in your circle finds plausible is usually too small. Filter every thought, every piece of advice, every opinion, every emotion through your own vision. Build your whole life around it. And if that means starting completely from scratch, then start completely from scratch.

Remove distractions instead of forcing discipline

The last thing you write into your notebook are the distractions standing in the way of your goal. Concretely. With names. With apps. With habits.

Success has less to do with discipline and more with removing the distractions that make discipline so exhausting. Anyone who spends all day fighting TikTok with willpower has nothing left in the evening for what really matters. Delete the app instead of trying to tame it.

Do not disappear from your life, disappear from the distractions. That can be apps, games, news feeds. It can also be people who keep you small because they take your change as a personal accusation. It is easier to cut all of it at once and ride out the short pain than to constantly explain your plans and sit through other peoples opinions.

Anyone who walks with you through your shift is gold. Anyone who drags you down is not. It is hard, but it is your responsibility. If you want to go deeper into the topic of discipline, read my article on discipline and how to stop getting distracted. That is where I get into the detail.

Reset: how to start fresh tomorrow morning

Reset your days and start fresh tomorrow morning. Everything you did before no longer matters. You will not do it again. Period.

Be intentional in what you do, from the moment you wake up. Your habits, your decisions, your actions brought you exactly here. If you keep going the way you have been going, you know exactly where your life ends up. You just have to say it out loud, honestly.

Not everything you do right now is bad. But the fastest way to recognise your priorities is to let go of everything and see what stays. What you miss after three days of silence is important. What you do not miss was an addiction to being busy.

Do not fill your time with activity, fill it with learning, growth and real experiences. Break your addiction to feeling busy. Most of the time you are giving time and energy to people, activities and things that do not care about your wellbeing. That stops.

And one crucial point: you do not owe anyone an explanation. The moment you feel the urge to explain what you are doing, you are asking permission from someone whose life you do not want. In that moment you are not taking back control for yourself, you are handing it to someone else. And that is an even bigger problem.

Steps onto your own path

So you do not just read this and forget it tomorrow, here are the steps in order. Start small, follow through.

1. Observe: consciously watch this week where the crowd is moving. A note on your phone is enough. Three examples a day.
2. Write your anti-vision: one notebook, one quiet hour, no phone. Everything you do not want, on paper.
3. Name the goal: one sentence that pulls you out of bed in the morning. If it does not, it is still too small.
4. Delete distractions: apps, groups, people. Anything that gets between you and the goal goes.
5. Morning reset: alarm earlier, no phone in the first hour, three tasks on paper that move the goal directly.
6. Weekly review: ten minutes once a week. What worked, what did not, what goes out, what comes in.
7. Find sparring: at least one person who gives you honest feedback, who does not applaud but challenges. Why this has nothing to do with classic coaching is explained in Business Coach vs. Sparring Partner.

The process, recognising what you do not want, launching in the opposite direction, prioritising long-term success, is part of the origin story of most successful people. If you do not know where to start, watch the video above one more time. But this time not for the dopamine hit, but to actually act. Flip the switch inside yourself and build a foundation that carries you to the life you want.

If you are also curious how I carry this clarity into marketing and why most agencies work with other peoples goals, read my article on tracking and agencies.

A look into the research fits here: the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described the flow state, that state of peak concentration in which people are most productive and most satisfied at the same time. Flow does not come from more tasks, it comes from less distraction and a goal that is genuinely yours. The anti-vision is the herald of flow.

Frequently asked questions about the anti-vision

The questions I get asked most often around anti-vision, discipline and your own goals.