Why You Quit Your Goals By The First Quarter Of The Year!

The calendar flips. Your energy spikes. You swear, this year is different.

And then—quietly—February arrives… and the old patterns come back like they never left.

In this episode of Crackin’ Backs, we sit with Max Rooke—a high-performance coach who lives in the trenches of identity-based goal setting, where motivation isn’t a meme… it’s a battle between who you say you want to be and who you’ve been trained to protect. And the part that hits hardest? Most people don’t fail because they’re lazy. They fail because their identity won’t let them win… yet.

And once you see the “invisible identity” you’ve been protecting, you can’t unsee it.

What You’ll Learn

Max breaks down why habit change psychology isn’t mainly about tactics—it’s about alignment.

You’ll learn:
 

• Why 80% of people abandon goals early (and what that says about identity, not effort)

• How to build clarity on what you want (not just what you don’t want)

• The “Big Box, Little Box” framework for identity shift

• Why willpower burnout happens—and how “why power” creates sustainable drive

• How fear of failure and fear of success both sabotage performance

• Why social media amplifies the “I’m not worthy” loop and fuels the comparison trap

• The intangible “stat” Max sees in champions: hunger
   

If you’ve ever felt like you’re pushing… but something inside keeps pulling you back—this conversation gives language to the loop.

And the moment Max tells the story of the goalkeeper who got left off the travel roster… you’ll feel the turning point coming.

Why This Conversation Matters Now

By February, the “New Year glow” fades—and most people interpret that as a character flaw.

Max sees it differently.

He says the first problem is clarity: people can list what they don’t want (“I don’t want to be miserable”), but can’t clearly name what they’re moving toward. Without clarity, priorities collapse.

And “I don’t have time” becomes the socially acceptable disguise for “I don’t have a vision.”

But the deeper problem is identity-based goal setting. Max frames it like this:

“The purpose of the goal isn’t to reach the goal. The purpose of the goal is what it makes of us—who we become in the process.”

That’s the real conflict:
Your goals are future-you speaking.
Your habits are present-you defending what feels familiar.

And when the goal doesn’t match who you believe you are, your nervous system protects the old identity. That protection can look like procrastination, self-sabotage, scrolling, comparing, “being busy,” or staying in the comfortable middle.

Because the middle is seductive: life is “good.” Not great. Not terrible. Just safe enough to avoid change.

Max calls it the zone where nothing happens—until either:
 

• you get inspired (pulled forward), or

• you get desperate (pushed out)
   

That tension—pull vs push—is the hidden engine behind habit change psychology and performance mindset.

And then Max makes a claim that flips “fear” on its head… and it changes the whole room.

The Identity Trap: Big Goals, Small Self

Max’s “Big Box, Little Box” analogy sounds funny… until you realize it’s describing your life.

Big box: your dream, your goal, your next level.
Little box: your current self-concept—belief, identity, self-worth, standards.

If the boxes don’t match, your actions will always drift back to consistency with who you believe you are. In psychology terms, that’s identity protection and self-consistency. In real life, it looks like:
 

• Starting strong and fading fast

• Needing “motivation” every day

• Overplanning and underacting

• Feeling unworthy of the role you say you want

• Staying in the comfort of being “good”
   

Max says people work hard on the what—what they want.
But they don’t work on the who—who they must become.

And the real friction isn’t time. It’s priorities.
And priorities collapse when meaning collapses.


But the story Max tells next—about one ruthless coaching decision—shows exactly how identity can change in a single week.

The Desperation Switch

Max shares a documentary-level moment from Pepperdine: a goalkeeper named Brielle Priess.

She was the #2 goalie—close enough to taste the dream, comfortable enough to avoid the pain. She had perks. She had status. She had “good.” But she wasn’t activating her potential.

So the staff made a decision: on a road trip where the #2 normally travels… they took the #3 and left Brielle home.

Two minutes after the roster posted, the phone rang. Rage. Shock. “Not fair.”

Max met with her and delivered the punch:

What wasn’t fair wasn’t the roster—
what wasn’t fair was her not becoming who she could be.

Then the transformation:
 

• First to practice

• Extra film

• Diet changed

• Front of class

• Extra help

• New standard
   

Two years of not playing turned into two years as the #1 starter—and two-time WCC Goalkeeper of the Year.

Same talent. Same environment. Same dream.

Different identity. Different motive for action.

That’s motivation vs discipline in real time:


Discipline pushes.
Desperation activates.
And inspiration pulls—when you finally see what you’re capable of.

And then Max drops a line that’s both brutal and freeing: your “fear” and your “faith” run on the same machinery.

Fear vs Faith: Same Engine, Different Direction

Max reframes the fear of failure and fear of success like this:

Fear is imagination… undirected.
Faith is imagination… directed.

Both are stories.
Both create physiology.
Both shape behavior.

But fear spirals into worst-case narratives:

“What if I can’t handle it?”
“What if they judge me?”
“What if I’m not enough?”

Max ties this to the sentence many people carry silently:
“I’m not worthy.”

Social media amplifies it. Because we compare our worst day to someone else’s highlight reel. That comparison trap fuels self-doubt, drains motivation triggers, and weakens the identity shift required for change.

He also shares something painfully human: he lost years of impact because he worried what people would think of his writing and videos. And then he asked the question that breaks the spell:

What about the one person it could help?

That’s why power.

Not pushing to be seen.
Being pulled by the mission to serve.

And right when you think this is all mindset theory, Max pulls it back to the field—where one invisible stat can decide a championship.

5 Key Insights From This Episode
 

1. Most goal failure is identity-based, not effort-based.
   If your self-belief doesn’t match your ambition, you’ll unconsciously protect the old you.

2. Clarity beats avoidance.
   People can name what they don’t want, but can’t name what they’re moving toward—so priorities collapse.

3. Willpower works… until it burns you out.
   Willpower is pushing. Why power is being pulled—more sustainable, more precise, more powerful.

4. Fear and faith are both imagination.
   The difference is direction. Faith is imagination aimed toward a desired outcome.

5. Hunger is an intangible championship skill.
   Max describes a match-winning header fueled by one trait: “I will not be denied.”
    

And if you want the real-world playbook—how to turn hunger into consistent habits—Max gives it through routines that sound simple… but require a serious identity upgrade.

Common Mistakes (Myths vs Truth)
 

• Myth: “I need more motivation.”
  Truth: You need a clearer motive for action—and an identity that can hold the goal.

• Myth: “I don’t have time.”
  Truth: It’s usually a priorities problem—and priorities follow vision.

• Myth: “Fear means stop.”
  Truth: Fear is undirected imagination; redirect it into faith and action.

• Myth: “Social media is harmless inspiration.”
  Truth: It often triggers comparison, which feeds “I’m not worthy.”
   

Try This Today
 

• Write your goal in one sentence—then write who you must become to earn it.

• Replace “I don’t want…” with “I’m moving toward…” (clarity over avoidance).

• Identify your “middle zone” where life is “good” but not growing—name it.

• Choose one protected block of white space (30–60 minutes) and defend it daily.

• Start your morning with a gratitude practice (walk or journal).

• Build a “persona switch” for performance moments (Max calls it Max vs Maximus).

• Ask: “Am I using willpower… or am I connected to why power?”
   

You can keep pushing with willpower… and quit again in February.

OR you can hear the identity framework that makes goals stick.

Max breaks down the “Big Box, Little Box” trap, fear vs faith, and the hunger stat champions live by.
Don’t miss the story that flips motivation on its head.


Listen + watch the full episode now.