Skip to content

You can achieve f*ck all if you really want it

Disclaimer: This is about a book that does not exist. But if it would exist, I want to start reading it today!

Foreword

This book is not about becoming a billionaire. It’s not about waking up at 5 a.m., drinking celery juice, running a startup, or cold-plunging your way to enlightenment.

It’s about you — and how you’re probably chasing goals that don’t belong to you.

In a world overflowing with advice, lifehacks, and productivity porn, it’s surprisingly rare to ask: Why am I even doing this?

As someone who has chased all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons — and occasionally a few right ones — I wrote this book not because I have it all figured out, but because I know what it looks like when things don’t make sense. I’ve seen it in friends, in colleagues, and most clearly, in the mirror.

This book is for people who are tired of being motivated by someone else’s life. If that’s you: good. You’re not lazy. You’re just ready to stop pretending.

Welcome. Let’s begin.

Summary

You Can Achieve F*ck All If You Really Want It is a clear-eyed, brutally honest guide to redefining personal goals in an era of hustle myths, lifestyle templates, and self-help echo chambers.

Most self-improvement books assume you already know what you want. This one doesn’t.

Instead, it starts at zero — with the uncomfortable truth that many of us set goals based on borrowed images: social media influencers, elite athletes, startup founders, or the vague sense that we’re “falling behind.”

Worse: we don’t borrow just one goal. We borrow all of them. We want to be fit, spiritual, wealthy, well-read, creative, calm, ambitious — all at once. And that doesn’t work. Because real goals don’t just tell you what to do — they tell you what not to do. They create focus by closing doors.

This book gives you the tools to stop that madness.

Through clear exercises, thoughtful provocations, and unapologetic honesty, you’ll learn how to:

  • Recognize goals that don’t belong to you
  • Uncover your actual values (and not the ones you were told to have)
  • Spot the difference between inspiration and imitation
  • Use constraint as a filter: how fewer goals make stronger action
  • Test-drive goals through low-commitment experiments before going all-in
  • Build an internal compass instead of chasing external approval

This is not a book about optimizing your calendar. It’s about figuring out why you're filling it in the first place.

Introduction: The Problem with Goals

Let’s be honest: You’re probably not unmotivated. You’re probably not broken. You’re probably just doing things that don’t mean anything to you.

And it’s not your fault.

We live in a time where setting goals is encouraged — but choosing them well is rarely discussed. You’ve been told to want success, discipline, abs, side hustles, mindfulness, and a dream job — all at once. And so you try. You make a list. You start strong. Then you burn out or stall, not because you’re weak, but because your brain doesn’t know what to prioritize.

You’re trying to steer in five directions at once.

And so even the things that might matter get drowned in noise.

The problem with most goals is not that they’re wrong — it’s that they’re not yours. Or that there are too many of them. A real goal simplifies your life. It helps you say no. But borrowed goals multiply complexity without adding meaning. They feel exciting at first, but lead nowhere.

This book offers an alternative.

Instead of giving you another productivity system or 90-day plan, we’ll go deeper — into your assumptions, your fears, and your unmet needs. You’ll learn how to clear the mental clutter, detect the false signals, and finally make decisions with clarity and confidence.

And no, that doesn’t mean giving up on ambition. It means pointing your ambition in the right direction.

Motivational Section: F*ck All is a Direction, Not a Destination Let me make something clear: “f*ck all” isn’t about giving up. It’s not about apathy or nihilism. It’s about choosing deliberate nothingness over accidental everything.

Because when you stop chasing the wrong things, you make room for the right ones.

You don’t need 10-year plans, color-coded boards, or vision quests to get started. You just need to be ruthlessly honest with yourself — about what actually lights you up, what you’re willing to struggle for, and what can finally be left behind.

Here’s what we’ll do in the chapters ahead:

  • You'll map your current goals — not the ones you say out loud, but the ones you secretly live by.
  • You’ll learn the difference between goals, values, and fears, and why mixing them up leads to confusion.
  • You'll run a "goal fast", where you temporarily let go of everything, and watch what comes back naturally.
  • You’ll try mini-experiments, where you test your curiosity in practice, not theory.
  • And you’ll build a personal filtering system — so that every shiny opportunity, every trend, every new “must” can be judged on your terms, not theirs.

By the end, you won’t have a blueprint. You’ll have something better: a compass. One that actually points to you.

That’s what it means to achieve f*ck all. To finally stop performing purpose — and start living it.

A Table of Contents

Part I – The Bullshit We Call Goals

Introduction: The Cult of the Goal

  • Why everyone has goals, but few know why
  • How we got here: lifestyle myths and ambition theatre
  • What this book isn’t about

Borrowed Dreams, Burnout Lives

  • How we end up chasing other people’s visions
  • The hidden costs of chasing too much
  • Spotting the "shoulds" in your life

The Mirage of Motivation

  • Why discipline won’t save a meaningless goal
  • What inspiration actually signals (and doesn’t)
  • When dopamine lies

Part II – Clearing the Clutter

F*ck It: The Goal Detox

  • A guided audit of all your current "goals"
  • The “Goal Fast” — doing nothing to find something
  • Anxiety, silence, and what shows up when you stop

Fear is Not a Goal

  • When you’re trying to outrun shame
  • Success as avoidance
  • Rewriting the scripts you didn’t write

The Power of Saying No

  • Why focus isn’t about more effort
  • The myth of balance
  • Choosing by subtracting

Part III – Finding What Actually Matters

From Values to Vision

  • How to define your real values without corporate posters
  • Value conflicts and what to do about them
  • The “Regret Test” and “Joy List” method

Designing Good Goals

  • A goal is a tool, not a tattoo
  • Goals that are testable, flexible, and aligned
  • The difference between real effort and performative effort

Testing Before Committing

  • How to run a personal pilot project
  • Tiny experiments to learn what sticks
  • When to quit, when to commit

Part IV – Staying on Your Path

Building Your Compass

  • Constructing a simple system to evaluate new ideas
  • The "Hell Yes / No" method — without FOMO
  • Check-ins, not checkboxes

Navigating Drift and Doubt

  • When you lose sight again — and you will
  • Adjusting without giving up
  • The value of boredom and rest

You Can Achieve F*ck All (And That’s Enough)

  • How “less” becomes “more” over time
  • You’ll still have ambition — just sharper
  • Your life is the lab. Now go run the experiment.

Back to Reality

Again, this book does not exist. Sorry. But let me know if you would like to read it as much as I do.

There are some actually existing books that go in a roughly similar direction. If I ever find one in the future, I will add it here.