Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter
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What are your small achievable goals?
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Last week, I finally got to share my interview with Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill, the formidable women behind the CBC comedy Small Achievable Goals.
It’s a workplace menopause sitcom and it’s groundbreaking in so many ways — including a scene which I describe in detail in the piece above, where Whalen’s character appraises her naked body in a full-length mirror and quietly shifts from judgment to (tentative) self-love. It honestly made me cry; it was such a raw and recognizable moment of vulnerability and, like MacNeill told me, such a powerful example of what doing that work can look like at home, in private.
But being that it’s January — still, forever, again — I wanted to riff on the show’s (excellent) title and talk about small achievable goals! The best genre of goals! I’ve written before about goal setting and how it often leads to overwhelm and failure because the goals are either too big, too vague or both.
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But make them small and achievable, and well, you get near-constant dopamine hits of tiny little wins that usually (sneakily!) contribute to a larger goal.
Here are some of my SAGs for 2026:
- Try a new restaurant once a month. Winnipeg has such an amazing culinary scene and I feel like I’ve gotten stuck in my old familiars so, along with two of my friends, we’ve started doing a Supper Club where we go somewhere at least one of us hasn’t tried. It’s fun! It makes you leave the house! It’s cost effective if you share a bunch of things!
- Move my body for 20 minutes every day. This is just a minimum. Or even a maximum depending on the day. We’re just moving in a non-judgmental way.
- Drink one more glass of water a day. That’s it. See, I’m not adding a massive hydration goal, we’re just trying to move a ball down the field toward the larger goal of “don’t get kidney stones.”
- Try one new recipe a month. Not a week — that feels like a Medium Achievable Goal — but a month. That’s 12 a year. I can do that.
- Ride my bike at least five times this summer. Again, we’re going small. I didn’t ride for years following an accident, then started again, then got scared of riding in the city. I’d like to overcome this phobia. If you have good bike paths for me, tell me.
That’s what I got for now. What are your SAGs?
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Jen Zoratti, Columnist
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