How to Stop Abandoning Your Work Goals

Khorus Software
Jul 27, 2017 · 5 min read

The lifecycle of a goal often goes something like this:

Phase 1: Excitement. “I’m looking forward to getting this done!”

Phase 2: Intimidation. “This might be harder than I thought.”

Phase 3: Frustration. “I’m not getting where I wanted.”

Phase 4: Evasion. “What goal? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

In other words, you’re fired up by what you want to achieve on day 1, but by day 30, 60, or 90, you’ve grown discouraged and lost sight of the original target. Sometimes obstacles come up and block your progress; sometimes you get caught in fire-fighting mode; other times you simply lose enthusiasm for the goal.

So then you let the goal quietly die, never acknowledging it existed in the first place. You set a new goal . . . and the cycle begins again, with little forward progress.

This is one of the most common way to mess up goal setting. You end up wandering from task to task, with dozens of those old zombie goals roaming around, never to be completed. Are they alive? Are they dead? Since you just let them fade away, it’s hard to say — but they’re still there, sapping your psychic energy.

We’ve designed Khorus to help end that cycle. The system prompts you to update your goals each week and, at the end of the quarter, mark each one “Achieved” or “Not achieved.” After all, if you’re not going to revisit and close out your goals, why set them in the first place?

There is value in simply writing down your goals. But the really important part is the follow-through, the execution. You have to keep working toward your goal bit by bit, and then close out the goal when its deadline arrives. (Your goals are time-bound, aren’t they?)

Why We Resist Closing Out Goals

Of course, it’s understandable to resist closing out goals. It feels uncomfortable to be held accountable, especially in public, with our work reputation on the line. There was one quarter where I missed four out of my five goals, and it wasn’t particularly fun to mark them “Not achieved” in Khorus. It’s human nature to want to brush a failure under the rug.

But we encourage you not to — and if you’re a manager, to make sure your team isn’t doing this. The performance of the company, and your growth as a professional, depends on it.

5 Tips to Improve Your Follow-Through

Here are five ways to end the cycle of abandoning goals and make sure you’re following the goal setting best practice of closing them out, even when you miss them.

“Stretch goals” are popular in the goal-setting literature, but we recommend setting them with caution. If your goal is challenging but also realistic, you’ll be much more inclined to stay on track. You’ll feel more comfortable checking back in on the goal each week, working toward it steadily, and closing it out when the deadline arrives.

Researchers have found that when you perceive your goal as achievable, you perform better. We like the experiment described here, where golfers made more putts when they perceived the hole to be bigger, due to projected circles around the hole — even though it was always the same size. Remember this as you choose your goals.

In addition to setting your desired end state, define the activities that will move you toward achievement of the goal. If you know what you need to do each day or week, you’re less likely to lose track of the goal. To use a weight-loss metaphor, you don’t want to just say you’re going to lose 10 pounds (your goal); you also want to make a plan for consuming fewer calories and visiting the gym three times a week (your system).

In Khorus, we encourage customers to record these activities — we call them “predictive measurements” — in the Description field of the goal. They help you see the tangible actions you need to take on a daily or weekly basis stay on course toward your goal.

You’re going to miss goals. When it happens, bite the bullet and be honest about the miss — and don’t be hard on yourself. There’s no need to apologize or feel bad. Instead, step out from the situation and identify the factors that caused the goal to go off track. Were there other positive outcomes achieved? Should you keep working toward this next quarter, or is it time to purposefully shift away from this goal?

If you’re a manager, explain to employees that the process of goal setting is about getting the right things done as a team, not about grading or punishing or paying employees. Be frank when you miss your own targets, and commend employees who raise their hand early when a goal will not be met.

If a goal becomes irrelevant before its deadline is up, purposefully remove it from your list. (This is what “Shelving” in Khorus is for.) They key is to be conscious about this process, so your goals remains a relevant guide for your daily work, and so you don’t end up with zombie goals piling up in your wake.

Finally, keep forging ahead when you miss goals. As mentioned above, seek out the lessons from the miss. Perhaps the goal was too aggressive, or the measurement wasn’t right. Don’t beat yourself up. Take the lesson and decide how it will influence your future action.

Closing out your goals, especially if you missed a few, isn’t always comfortable. But it’s vital that you master this discipline, and help your employees do the same.

Using Khorus is a great way to start. On average, Khorus customers achieve almost 80 percent of the goals they create in the system. What could your team be getting done?


Originally published at www.khorus.com.

Khorus Software

Written by

Khorus is software to help CEOs deliver predictable performance. Set clear strategic goals, gather weekly team insight, and drive execution (www.khorus.com).

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