The art of goals
Welcome to Love Mondays, a weekly newsletter designed as a 3-minute hit to fire up the other 10,077 minutes of your week.
Goals to put your game in play
A goal helps us raise the bar. But flip two letters and we’re behind bars! When it comes to motivation, a goal set too high will paralyse our pursuit. A goal too low will feel like doing time. The art of goal-setting is about busting us out of whatever limitations are restricting us. And the best way to do that? Keep the keys in clear view.
What is your wildest, most audacious goal?
Write it down.
Consider: breaking your audacious goal down into micro-goals
Practice: writing down one micro-goal you could start working on today–use first person, present tense language with a specific time-frame
Decide to: put it where you can see it, tell someone about it, and track progress regularly
Setting goals using Google’s OKR system
During Google’s first year, investor John Doerr pitched the idea of using an organisational system called Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for goal setting. He presented it as a common language for businesses to be both strategic and operational in goal setting. As a framework, OKRs help leadership teams discuss how the work of single individuals connects back to the overall business strategy. OKRs should be transparent to everyone: top-down, bottom-up, and cross-functional. When everyone’s looking at the same framework, everyone has the opportunity to work toward shared outcomes.
Clear objectives help you articulate what you want to achieve. They are significant, concrete, and trackable. Key results explain how you’ll get those things done. They provide momentum and inspiration along the way, allowing you to celebrate milestones. Practice transparency and simplify big ideas, so everyone understands how they contribute to bigger company goals and priorities. Work with accountability partners one-on-one or with a wider group so everyone stays aligned and cross-collaborative. Review previous OKRs on a scale from 0 to 100%. Clue: if you consistently score 100%, your OKRs are not audacious enough!
Thank you to everyone who’s joined our now 15,000+ strong community of Easy Tiger and Love Mondays readers. We appreciate your readership. If you’d like to help us spread the word, why not share Love Mondays with a friend?
Let’s action some new learning this week!
Love your Mondays.