The “Great Lock-In” is back, but is it for you?
TheGrio...
The great lock-in has returned, a time when many use the remaining 121 days of the year to lock in on goals or set new intentions.
Have you heard? It’s September, and we’re not winding things down. Nope. Apparently, we’re locking in.
With the start of September, “The Great Lock-In,” when people use the last 121 days or the last four months of the year to lock in on their goals and set new intentions, has officially begun.
“Sept 1st – Dec 31st LOCK TF IN!!!! 🔐,” a user declared in a post on Threads.
Just like January inspires “new year, new you” energy, or the way many others see spring as the official start of the year, fall has become another such time. But in a year and at a time when so much is out of so many people’s control, do we really need another productivity season? More to the point, do you need another season for self-optimization? Well, that’s just the thing, “The Great Lock In” isn’t exactly one note.
The trend kicked off last year and has returned with a vengeance. The premise is simple enough: Come up with a set of intentions for how you want to spend the rest of the year. For some, that means a hard reset and a new set of goals around health, fitness, finances, or career. You might lock in on landing a new job, finally sticking to a workout routine, or getting serious about saving money. For others, the goals are a little less tangible, like spending more time with friends and family, deepening their spiritual life, trying one new activity every month, or simply being more present. There doesn’t seem to be a right or wrong way to “lock in.” It can mean whatever you need it to mean.
One user on TikTok said for anyone looking for how to get started, she suggests asking yourself a major question in particular.
“I want you to ask yourself, just so you can get some clarity on your goals and different things that you can lock in on, If December 31st rolls around, and you said, ‘Oh my God, a great lock-in actually worked,’ what would you have hoped to have worked or to have happened? And don’t give me habits; give me outcomes,” she said into the camera.
Whether it’s actually good for you is the more complicated part. Locking in, leaning in, and getting serious about your goals are all nice when circumstances allow for it. Plenty of us, however, would argue we’ve been locked in all year, through an election cycle, massive job losses, and the continued dismantling of DEI in workplaces, schools, and across industries. For Black people specifically, striving can carry even more baggage. There’s Black excellence, generational wealth, making your family proud, and, of course, that old idea that we have to work twice as hard to get half as far.
That makes another four months dedicated to becoming better, stronger, richer, healthier or more disciplined a potentially exhausting proposition. It also arrives after years of Black people, particularly Black women, publicly questioning our relationship with constant labor in the first place. The rise of the “soft life,” conversations about rest and the rejection of struggle as a prerequisite for success have all asked the opposite of the Great Lock-In: What if a good life isn’t one you have to constantly earn?
Then again, the time is going to pass anyway. Maybe the year knocked the wind out of your sails. Maybe summer was hot, muggy, and chaotic, and your routines went completely out the window. Maybe September’s back-to-school energy really does make you want to pull out a fresh notebook, reorganize your life, and try again. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using a new season as an excuse to recommit to something you care about.
In fact, fall has long carried its own unofficial “lock-in” energy. School starts again, workplaces shake off the summer slowdown, and businesses enter a crucial final stretch of the year. Plenty of people already organize their lives into quarters, seasons, or other smaller chunks of time. Using it to lock in on pushing yourself for richer experiences genuinely doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Sometimes giving yourself a starting line is exactly the little psychological trick you need to get moving.
The trouble starts when every starting line comes with a completely new version of yourself waiting at the finish. After “new year, new me,” the spring reset, a very outside summer, and now the Great Lock-In, eventually, you have to wonder whether the problem is really that you haven’t found the right season for personal optimization.
Maybe the better goal is learning how to set goals you can actually live with. A laundry list of every nook and cranny of yourself you want to change is less a plan than a very efficient way to feel like you’re failing. It’s not exactly what “The Great Lock-In” is even encouraging across the board. You probably don’t need the workout routine of an Olympic athlete or the writing and reading schedule of a Nobel laureate. Moving your body once a day counts. Doing one thing toward the project you’ve been dreaming about counts. Small things become routines, routines become discipline, and, yes, you really do have to crawl before you can walk.
“The real change doesn’t wait for a calendar date. It happens in quiet, ordinary days. When you show up for yourself. When you build habits that no one claps for yet. When you keep promises you made to you,” a user on Threads wrote in a post.
You could very well change your whole life by the end of December. You could also spend these next four months getting closer to the people you love, discovering something new about yourself, or simply finding a little more joy in your everyday life. Personal goals should give us something to look forward to, not leave us constantly anxious that we’re behind. Sometimes cheating on your diet to have an incredible dinner with friends reminds you that maybe what you really wanted was more good meals with people you love. Sometimes getting bored gives your brain enough room to finally have the breakthrough you’ve been chasing. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing is, in fact, the thing you needed to do.
So lock in, set the intentions, finish the year strong — just remember, “becoming” isn’t something you have to schedule. We are always growing, changing, and becoming, even when we’re simply living. And if Dec. 31 arrives and all you can say is that you made it through? That counts, too. Sometimes letting yourself be is part of becoming, too.