4 Ways to Stick to Your Work Goals this Year - Katya A

There's nothing quite like writing the first chapter of a book, starting a new product or trying to turn around a workplace situation. You start with the eager optimism that marks new beginnings but soon enough you are intimate with the bleaker aspects of the journey - its uphill battles, its staggering length, its maddening detours. The temptation grows to succumb to self doubt, make excuses and abandon the long dark road to your destination.

To state the obvious, setting goals isn't the challenge. What's hard is the burden of steadfastly pursuing them when you're feeling lost, discouraged or tired. Those moments will inevitably come in 2014, so it's worth planning for ways to power through them - for yourself but even more importantly, for your larger team at work. This year, don't just plan for where you need to go - plan for what will keep you going. You can't just push for performance. You have to inspire perseverance.

Here are four methods I've used to stay on the long dark road. What works for you?

1. Paint a vivid, black-and-white picture of the destination. What is the one goal you are going to accomplish this year? Make it an all or nothing, black-and-white goal and communicate it clearly. Dan Heath calls this a destination postcard - a clear picture from the near-term future that shows what you will make happen. This helps you and your colleaguesfeel that you're going somewhere—and getting there together. Without this kind of picture, people get lost in daily details and lose inspiration.

2. Sign up for your goal in public. This one works especially well for me. A couple of years ago when I worked in a different field, I had a blog and decided to post every day for a year (that was my all-or-nothing, black and white goal). What helped me achieve the goal was making the pledge on the blog to every reader as well as telling people I respected what I intended to do. It's easy to make excuses to yourself. If you don't share what you are setting out to do with others, it will be easier to slow down or give up. When you pledge to do something to others or as a group in a visible way, you will be more motivated to come through. You won't want to let other people down.

3. Give your goal a progress bar. A big goal is usually far off, so you want to know you're making progress even if you're not yet at your destination. Show momentum toward your end point with fun visual elements, on the walls of your office or online. I've used giant thermometers, dashboards and even glass walls filled with orange ping pong balls to mark what was getting done.

4. Embrace course corrections. There are occasions when you should leave the long dark road. Or change your goal and destination based on new information, context, threats or opportunities. I've thrown out the first half a book I wrote in order to start over, shut down half-built products headed for failure and realized some goals needed complete rethinking. This post is not about blindly grinding toward a goal no matter its relevance. Rather, it's about sustaining along the tough journeys that mark most significant undertakings. And knowing that your route may take you places you don't yet imagine.

As I like to say about travel, we embark on journeys out of hope, with a dream of a destination in mind. Where we end up tends to be another matter and a different place entirely. That's a good thing. With the right amount of perseverance you will get to where you need to go, even when your map is a work in progress.

Source: Katya A (LinkedIn)