Why Leaders Need to Let Their Work Count Before Chasing the Next Goal

In a recent LinkedIn post, Janet Kim discusses how the constant pursuit of the next goal can make rest feel undeserved. This article covers Kim’s reflections on LinkedIn; it is a journalistic account of her ideas, not an article written by her.

“You’re not behind.
You just never let what you did count.”

Kim connects that feeling of being perpetually late to a habit of moving from one milestone to another without pausing to recognize progress. She writes that she has posted weekly since March, with some posts gaining traction and others barely moving. The uneven response used to bother her, she says, but a weekend spent walking, meeting old friends and attending an open mic helped her reconsider what it means to keep going.

When progress becomes a moving target

In Kim’s account, the problem is not a lack of ambition or care. It is the sense that the next goal is always already overdue. She describes chasing goals “like moving trains”: finishing one task only to jump to the next, with no moment of satisfaction in between.

“No pause.
No satisfaction.
No moment where I say, ‘That counted.’”

That pattern, Kim argues, can make rest seem like something a person must earn through exhaustion. The post’s central invitation is to notice the work already underway rather than treating the present only as a launch point for what comes next.

The leadership cost of unrecognized effort

Kim extends her personal reflection to workplace leadership. According to Kim, employees may burn out quietly not only because of how much work they have, but because they never hear that their contributions mattered. Her point places recognition alongside workload as a factor leaders should pay attention to.

“Good people burn out quietly.
Not from workload.
From never hearing, ‘This mattered.’”

The post does not offer a management program or claim that recognition alone prevents burnout. Instead, Kim draws attention to a recurring experience: effort can go unacknowledged when teams focus exclusively on the next deliverable or milestone.

Making room for the process

Kim’s practical advice is deliberately brief: be present in the process, pause and let the day count. She also shares the phrase “Go through your goal, not at it,” which she says helped her see how aiming constantly beyond the current moment can obscure the work being done now.

Her closing message is that impact does not require a perfect plan, outside validation or suffering as proof of effort. As Kim puts it, “You’ve already done enough for today. Act like it.” In the post, that line serves as a challenge to professionals—and to leaders—to recognize progress before moving on to the next measure of success.