For anyone who has confronted unexpected events impinging upon the actions they are taking toward their goals (such as, illness, travel, work commitments and so on) and as a result the goal has been abandoned. In this goal achievement article, I discuss how to sustain movement toward a goal when “life exerts itself”. Those times when something you could not plan for has happened and interfered with your best laid plans of taking action toward your goal (like breaking a finger the week you were going to start guitar lessons). In this article, I go back to the athletics track for dramatic, unexpected events that affected sprinter Melinda Gainsford-Taylor, coach Jackie Brynes, and myself to illustrated the problem. I then discuss the cognitive and behavioural strategies we used to sustain action toward our respective goals.