Telling someone your goal works best when they’re allowed to ask how it’s going.

Announcing a goal can end up substituting for doing it, because the telling collects the admiration in advance. What stops that is giving the other person permission to check, since now the announcement has a cost attached and you will be asked a question you would rather be able to answer. Choose somebody who will actually ask, not somebody who will be nice about it.

Pick one person this week and tell them what you are working on, plus the date they can ask about it. Then answer honestly when they do, including the weeks when nothing happened. That small discomfort is most of what the arrangement is for.