— 5 min read

Contrary to popular opinion most people don’t have goals. They have hopes and dreams. If you want to achieve those dreams, you must form them into goals and work towards them every day.

This sort of commitment to goals is the most foolproof way to make sure you can achieve your dreams and feel good about your accomplishments.

The difference between a goal and a dream is subtle. It is the difference between wanting to conquer the world and having a tactical action plan for invading Canada. Dreams by definition are beyond your reach. Goals however are things you believe you can do if you stick to a plan.

The definition of goal is “the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.” One of the most effective way to start moving toward those goals is to write them down as Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) in Weekdone

How to set the right OKRs.

For the last 3 years, I’ve been using and helping others to use the OKR methodology. While doing research for writing the “Step by Step Guide to OKRs” I discovered 5 things you always need to keep in mind while setting and fulfilling goals.

  • Goals must be clear and plain. The easier the goal is to understand, the more likely it is to succeed. When you set vague goals, it’s much simpler to ignore them or for your team not to understand it.
  • Goals must inspire. When using OKRs, it is common best practice to set goals too high. These goals are called moonshot OKRs. These goas are meant to force you to rethink how you work and inspire you to try new, groundbreaking methods in your work.
  • There is no private goals in a team. Like in Google, everyone should know what the personal Objective for each person are. This helps team members understand how they contribute to other people’s work and improves both engagement and focus.
  • Progress towards goals must be constantly measured. Setting goals is only the first and easiest step. Then you need to fulfill them. You must use some progress tracking system. This will make sure everyone is doing something to fulfill their long term goals every week.
  • There is no shame in failing a goal. Sometimes you don’t reach your goals.. That’s okay. There is no shame in failure. Important thing is how you handle it.

Following these 5 rules has helped me and other companies at lot. You can read some of these success stories from our case study page and start improving your team as well by being more focused and efficient as a team.

Why do I need OKRs anyway?

Not setting the right goals is a sure way to become a business failure. According to Psychology Today, “people who merely thought about their goals and how to reach them succeeded less than 50% of the time, while people who wrote goals down, and enlisted friends to help them by sending regular progress reports succeeded closer to 75% of the time.”

Only those who have clear goals in mind can get things done. There’s no point is sitting and dreaming about that big sale or viral marketing campaign that will bring you millions. To actually reach those dreams, you need to set them as Objectives, decide what are the Key Results you need to reach to achieve those Objectives and start working towards those Key Results every week.

You can do all that in Weekdone right now to make sure you are ready to face the next quarter. While OKRs may seem confusing, they are very easy and reliable, once you and your team gets the hang of it. So, sign up to Weekdone now.