STUDENT STORY
5 Ways to Chase Big Goals Without Burning Out
Mariam M. | Apr. 20, 2026
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When you decide you want something badly enough, your life starts to shift around it. You make more time. You start saying no to things you’d normally say yes to. You try to be more consistent, more focused, more disciplined, because that feels like the right move.
For a while, it works.
That’s usually the part people talk about.
What they don’t talk about as much is what happens after that. How you keep going without everything starting to feel like too much.
At the OFSAA student forum, EF Pro Cycling riders Alex Volstad and Michael Leonard spoke about what that actually looks like in practice.
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Doing More Isn’t Always the Answer
You decide you actually want to get better at something, so you start making time for it. It could be training for a marathon, pushing for a promotion, or trying to stay consistent with that new hobby you’ve been putting off. Then you add something else, and before you really notice it, everything starts to pile up. For a while, it works. Until it doesn’t.
What usually gets overlooked is how selective you need to be with what really matters.
“In your life, 80% of your returns are going to come from 20% of the habits.”
The hard part is figuring out what that 20% is. It’s usually the things that still move you forward even if you cut everything else out. Everything else still feels important, which is what makes it hard to prioritize. But if you treat it all the same, your effort gets spread too thin.
You Can’t Stay at 100% All the Time
There’s a version of “going all in” that sounds impressive. Locked in, focused, pushing all the time. But it’s not realistic. “You can't actually give 100% all the time,” Michael said.
That’s not a mindset issue. It’s just how people work. In cycling, that’s built into the structure. There are periods where everything is about performance, and others where the goal is to recover and build again. Most people don’t think about their lives that way. They try to stay in that high-output mode all the time, and eventually it catches up to them.
The takeaway isn’t to care less. It’s to stop expecting yourself to operate at full capacity all the time.
Thinking About It All Day Doesn’t Help
There’s also this idea that if you really care about something, it should take up all your attention. You should be thinking about it constantly, planning it, replaying it, trying to stay on top of every detail. Michael said he used to do exactly that: “When I was in high school I used to think about my training all day.”
It felt like commitment, but it wasn’t what actually made a difference. Over time, both he and Alex started to draw a clearer line between the kind of focus that helps and the kind that just adds more pressure.
“It is important to notice the difference between healthy versus unhealthy obsession… healthy obsession has a clear purpose.”
It is a small change in mindset, but it makes a real difference in how you show up. The work still matters, but it doesn’t need to be on your mind all the time.
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What You Do Isn’t Who You Are
When you invest a lot into something, it’s easy to tie it to your identity. If things are going well, you feel good. If they’re not, it hits harder than it should. Alex pushed back on that idea: “Cycling is just something we do.”
It matters. It takes effort. But it’s not everything. And that separation is what makes it sustainable. Because if everything depends on one thing, it’s hard to stay steady when that thing doesn’t go your way.
The Process Matters More Than the Outcome
It’s easy to fixate on the end goal. Making the team, getting into the program, reaching whatever you’ve been working toward. But that moment is short. Most of your time is spent in the build-up.
Michael said it directly: “You want to think more about what is the process of achieving that goal going to be like and does that align with my identity.”
In other words, do you actually want the life that comes with that goal.
Because that process isn’t abstract. It’s what your days actually look like. The routines, the trade-offs, the way your time is spent.
And if that part doesn’t fit, it’s hard to make the outcome feel worth it.
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So what does this actually mean?
When you start taking something seriously, it’s easy to think it needs to take over everything. It doesn’t mean being at 100% all the time or letting it take over your entire day. It means being more deliberate, knowing what actually moves you forward and what just adds pressure, and understanding when to push and when to step back. Just as importantly, it means having something outside of it, something that keeps you grounded so that one goal doesn’t become everything.
Because going all in can take you somewhere, but the people who stay with it are the ones who figure out how to build it into a life that actually works.
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