What is ‘The Great Lock In’? Inside Gen Z’s end-of-year self-improvement trend

Summer is drawing to a close, back-to-school season is here, and it’s the final sprint toward 2026. Cue “The Great Lock In of 2025.”

In mid-August, social media started buzzing with posts about “The Great Lock In.” As the name suggests, it’s built around the Gen Z slang for fully committing or hyperfocusing on a task, goal, or activity. From now until the end of the year, the idea is to “lock in” and to get your life in order and your goals checked off before 2026.

According to the Know Your Meme website, the trend began with creator @shmeat27, who last month posted NBA highlights captioned: “The type energy we bringing to the great lock in aug-oct 2025.” That video has nearly a quarter of a million views and has since inspired a wave of similar content.

“The great lock in of August to December 2025 can make generational change for your life,” another creator posted. “I’ve been slacking all summer,” he continued. “That means I’m gonna be working hard all winter.”

Social media loves nothing more than a self-development trend. On X, user @quinnslcm wrote: “I don’t think you understand how serious the great lock in from August to December 2025 is.” They continued: “You can feel it in your bones, the air starts tasting different, there’s a restlessness in your soul that knows something is shifting.”

There are no hard-and-fast rules for “The Great Lock In of 2025” beyond, well, locking in. In many ways, it’s a rebrand of 2024’s Winter Arc, another self-improvement trend that encouraged a seasonal focus on discipline and momentum after summer indulgence.

Of course, the pressure of locking in—and the reminder that there are only a few months left in the year to hit whatever goals you scribbled down in January—can feel overwhelming. But time is a social construct, and life is more than a relentless quest for optimization.

Still, if the start of a new season and that nostalgic back-to-school energy have you feeling renewed, it might just be the perfect time to lock in.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91396695/what-is-the-great-lock-in-inside-gen-zs-end-of-year-self-improvement-trend?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss