According to the Bhagavad Gita, karma yoga is hard and ceaseless work with efficiency and equilibrium, without being affected by the karmas that the work brings. Maybe the work is a success or a failure, or a mixture of both.
One should not worry about the outcome, whatever it may be. One should work for the sake of self-purification, work efficiently in order to yoke all the tendencies of the mind, and work with equilibrium in order to succeed in the work. However, one should not worry about desired results. This is the philosophy of karma yoga, which is described clearly in every chapter of the Bhagavad Gita. It relates to everyday life and has to be practised in every sphere of life.
Karma yoga is the philosophy of one’s relationship with life. It explains what the attitude towards work, family, children, problems, enemies and everything else should be. It tells how one should react in success and failure, love and hatred, victory and defeat. Karma yoga fixes a person’s relationship with everything else in the world in such a way that nothing disturbs the mind at any time, no matter what has happened.
But whosoever, controlling the senses by the mind, O Arjuna, engages himself in karma yoga with the organs of action, without attachment, he excels! (3:7)