It’s October. You’re staring at your Q4 goals and there’s this weird feeling in your gut. Like you know you’re supposed to be fired up for the final push, but honestly you’re just tired. Everyone’s talking about “finishing strong” but what if you don’t even remember why half these goals mattered in the first place?
Yeah, same.
According to a 2023 study by The Workforce Institute, 68% of employees report they cannot be completely honest with their manager about workplace issues. Think about that. More than two-thirds of people at work are filtering what they say, and we’re supposed to suddenly align on Q4 goals like everything’s transparent.
Then we introduce the Zeigarnik Effect. Basically, unfinished tasks create way more mental load than completed ones. Which means all those half-dead Q4 goals you’re dragging around are literally draining your energy even when you’re not working on them. So if you’ve got goals that don’t matter anymore but you keep pretending they do, you’re not just wasting time. You’re actively making yourself more exhausted.
What Actually Matters Right Now
Take 5 minutes.
List out your Q4 goals. All of them. Work stuff, personal stuff, whatever you said mattered back when the year started.
Now ask yourself for each one: Do I actually care about this anymore?
Not “should I care” or “do I look bad if I don’t care.” Do YOU care?
Because here’s another item we deal with: cognitive dissonance. When your actions don’t match what you believe, your brain essentially short-circuits. You feel anxious and stuck and you don’t even know why. That’s what happens when you’re grinding toward goals you stopped believing in months ago.
Once you’ve figured out which goals still matter and which ones you’re just dragging around out of guilt or obligation, you can actually make a plan that doesn’t feel like walking through mud. Drop the dead weight. Double down on what matters. Stop pretending you care about things you don’t.
Using The Agreement for Q4
If you’re leading anyone, this is where The Agreement comes in. Before your next planning meeting, try this:
“Will you agree with me on how we’re going to communicate? I want you to be 100 percent honest, meaning be truly and freely yourself, speaking into what you want and how you feel. I promise you I will be 100 percent open to it. I will listen without reservation. I’ll put my needs and wants on pause for you. In return, I will be honest with you, and I ask that you be completely open to it.”
People will probably look at you weird at first. They’ve been burned before by leaders who ask for honesty and then punish them for it. But if you truly mean it and follow through, you’ll get real information instead of whatever people think you want to hear.
You might find out your plan has holes. Or that the team is running on fumes. Or that nobody actually believes in that one “important” initiative anymore. And yes, that’s uncomfortable. But it’s way better than spending 12 weeks executing a plan nobody’s actually bought into.
The Q4 Move
You’ve got about 12 weeks left in the year.
You can spend them chasing goals that don’t matter anymore, pretending everything’s fine while your team quietly checks out. Or you can get honest about what you actually want, adjust your targets to match reality, and finish the year knowing you did something that mattered.
The grind culture people will tell you that’s quitting. That you need to push through. But there’s research on this called the sunk cost fallacy. We keep investing in something just because we already invested in it, even when it’s clearly not working. That’s not determination. That’s just being stubborn.
Smart people change their minds when the situation changes. And the situation has definitely changed since January.
Bottom Line
Your Q4 doesn’t have to suck. But it will if you keep lying to yourself about what you’re actually trying to do and why.
So ask the question: What do I really want from these last few months?
And then listen to your answer instead of ignoring it because it’s inconvenient.