Goals are an essential part of life, and we often forgo our own goals leaving them in a work setting. We can become lost if we do not plan our life and prioritize our efforts on those things that matter.
Often the goals we set ourselves allow us, or our team, to hide behind ambiguity with no accountability. By setting SMART goals, we can remove ambiguity and ensure that goals are well-defined, removing excuses for not achieving them.
This article will define a SMART goal and how it can help you achieve your professional and life goals. We also list those areas of life that SMART goals can apply to. We also discuss why not using SMART goals provides a weak mission statement leading to poor results.
What are SMART goals?
SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Establishing these parameters for your goals and projects in life increases accountability. Nailing down the details of your goal allows you to construct a plan for success. You will achieve your goal sooner because it is time-bound, and you will be hyper-focused on achieving a well-defined goal.
Why are SMART goals better?
Specific
When defining a goal, there are vital questions that must be answered. If answered from the beginning, it can ensure the success of implementation.
What is the goal?
What needs to be done to achieve the goal?
When will we achieve the goal by?
Who’s responsible for making the goal a success?
These questions allow us to turn a goal from:
“I want to lose weight.”
To
“I want to lose weight by going to the gym and eating below my calorie maintenance.”
Measurable
Now we quantify that goal. We can do this by finding a measure of our success. This allows us to track our progress against performance indicators. This means we can understand the progress toward the goal and understand when we have achieved the goal.
To quantify the original example:
“I want to lose weight by going to the gym three times a week and eating below my calorie maintenance.”
To
“I want to lose x pounds by going to the gym x times a week and eating x number of calories below my caloric maintenance of x.”
We have now quantified our goal, but we can go further.
Achievable
The goal you choose must be achievable. Arguably we want our life goals to be unachievable as this allows us to enjoy the journey towards a larger purpose. A goal that we can support and further but only partially achieve in our lifetime. Something that lives on after we depart – our legacy. Examples include “peace on our earth,” “protect our oceans,” and “become a multi-planetary species.”
This does apply to goals we do want to achieve in our lives. This could include personal, career, relationship, and travel goals. These goals must be achievable for us to stay motivated and find achievement and growth throughout our life.
Our example of weight loss means that the individual must ensure they do not set a weight loss target that is too high. A healthy rate of weight loss is no more than two pounds a week. So, this already limits the weight loss to 24 pounds. Next, they need to account for that eventual cheat meal and add in a little contingency. The person setting the goal will need to determine whether it is achievable or not. They could also ask others whether the plan stacks up.
If the goal or project comes from an external source (your manager, for example), then we need to learn to push back when goals are not achievable. This could be due to the timeframe, resource availability, complexity, and knowledge.
So, the goal turns into.
“I want to lose x pounds by going to the gym x times a week and eating x number of calories below my caloric maintenance of x.”
To
“I want to lose y pounds by going to the gym y times a week and eating y number of calories below my caloric maintenance of y.”
Relevant
This is where you need to ask whether the goal is important. Relating back to my previous article, does the goal align with your values and overall priorities in life?
Why is the goal being set?
What is the big picture?
The person’s true goal in the example may be “I want to feel healthier,” “I want to be around for my grandchildren,” or “I want to feel and look better.” Once the bigger picture is defined, the goal setter can understand whether this is an important goal. They can also determine whether their time would be better spent elsewhere.
“I want to lose y pounds by going to the gym y times a week and eating y number of calories below my caloric maintenance of y.”
To
“I want to lose y pounds by going to the gym y times a week and eating y number of calories below my caloric maintenance of y. It is important that this goal is reached as I want to live to see my grandchildren.”
That goal now has weight behind it.
Time-bound
Finally, you need to ensure you set a deadline.
The adage of Parkinson’s Law springs to mind:
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
Everyone has faced this at some time in their life. Some people are serial offenders leaving everything till the last minute. You will know what I mean if you have done a thesis. At first, you have six months, so you venture on that night out or several.
One month seems to sneak up on you, and you find yourself staring down the barrel of the deadline. A sense of dread rolls over you, and magically you can write 20,000 words in several weeks. For some, this feeling comes far too late. I had a friend who had a slow panic alarm (a week beforehand).
So back to our example, the goal now turns into:
“I want to lose y pounds by going to the gym y times a week and eating y number of calories below my caloric maintenance of y. It is important that this goal is reached as I want to live to see my grandchildren.”
To
“I want to lose y pounds by going to the gym y times a week and eating y number of calories below my caloric maintenance of y. I will lose this weight over the next x days by weighing myself every Friday. It is important that this goal is reached as I want to live to see my grandchildren.”
That is a goal.
How can you use SMART goals to achieve success?
By using SMART goals in your own life, you can define clear goals without the fluff. Going from this:
“I want to lose weight.”
To
“I want to lose y pounds by going to the gym y times a week and eating y number of calories below my caloric maintenance of y. I will lose this weight over the next x days by weighing myself every Friday. It is important that this goal is reached as I want to live to see my grandchildren.”
You can see how the single, vague “I want to lose weight” goal turns into a well-defined goal with an implementation plan. We cannot hide behind the second goal. It holds us accountable.
What can you use SMART goals for?
There are many areas of life in that you can apply SMART goals to. Often used within a work setting, these goals can allow you to improve all areas of your life. Setting goals within the twelve areas of life allows you to improve in areas that matter to you.
If you haven’t already I would encourage you to read my article about the twelve areas of life and focusing on what matters.
The goals below are not created as SMART goals; they are to provide examples of possible initial goals that need to be expanded. As with our example, “I want to lose weight,” these are in their pre-SMART state for examples of where goals can help in life.
Bucket List
We can use SMART goals to help define our bucket list goals. By defining each goal clearly, we can ensure that each is achievable, time-bound, and aligned with our bigger picture. This could include that next big adventure, the artist you have always wanted to see, or running a marathon.
I am reminded of Idiot Abroad while I write this *laughs*.
Growth Goals
These goals can include:
- Career goals: a promotion or achieving a professional accreditation.
- Business goals: sales, customer satisfaction, and marketing goals.
- Learning goals: learning a language, an instrument, or a new skill.
- Creative project goals: writing a novel, painting, or game development.
- Hobby goals: Start a new hobby, play x competitively, and finish creating that model.
Relationship Goals
These goals can include:
- Partner goals: Go out on x number of dates per month, spend every Friday with your significant other or start a family together.
- Home improvement goals: Finish the garden, construct the shed, or declutter the house.
- Friend goals: Join a group and call a friend that you have lost touch with.
- Volunteering Goals: Sign up to volunteer, volunteer x number of hours this month, and campaign on something that matters to you.
Health Goals
These goals can include:
- Physical health goals: Weight loss, muscle mass, and fitness goals.
- Mental health goals: meditate x consecutive days, write a journal daily, join a yoga group and attend every day for a month.
- Financial health goals: Save x amount of money, invest x amount of money, and build an emergency fund of 3 to 6 months of expenses.
Environment Goals
These goals can include:
- Travel goals: travel to x country, travel to x number of countries, go on a safari.
- Work location goals: look for a job closer to my home to reduce my commute and finish my home office.
- House goals: Purchase the dream home, clean the house every Friday night, and declutter my bedroom.
Final Thoughts
On reflection, in principle, this works; however, we often forget the importance of defining clear life goals. Often, we can find other people’s goals pushed upon us. If you don’t define your goals, someone else will, or worse, no one will. You will walk blindly through life, not assigning time to important areas.
In my own life, I will work to implement more SMART goals and post them on this site. By doing this, I have nowhere to hide. Putting a stake in the ground will ensure that I focus on implementation over the desire for results without effort. Unfortunately, this is fanciful. Everything that offers a reward requires effort and sacrifice.
The bigger the reward, the more effort.
The sacrifice of one decision for another.
Take control of your life by setting SMART goals that align with your values and priorities in life. I certainly will.