― C.S. Lewis
One of the best suggestions ever made to me in both my personal and professional life was to set SMART Goals, if you're hearing this for the first time I'm sure your reaction was much like mine "of course I set smart goals, why would I set stupid goals?"Well SMART goals don't exactly refer to the overall intelligence behind the goal although if you follow SMART guidelines you'll almost certainly find yourself with smart goals!
SMART Goal-setting is all about following some simple guidelines set out by the acronym SMART.
S- Specific: Truly great goal setting is characterized by the fact that it is specific in nature. By this I mean that setting a goal of "being more successful this year" is not nearly as powerful as "I'm going to obtain 1 million in new business, and expand into 2 new markets this year". Paulo Cuelho (author of The Devil and Miss Prym) put it well when he said “Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.”
M- Measurable: Make sure that you can keep track of your goal so that you can, at whatever measure of time is appropriate, see if you are on course and adjust your course accordingly. That means that whenever is necessary be it daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly sit down and examine your progress towards your chosen goal. Take the time to really go through it and see exactly where you are, and what you can do to improve your progress towards this goal. Consider posting something to help you keep track of your goal, much as a charity would keep track of their progress towards a fundraising goal. This can serve as a helpful daily reminder of your goal and your progress towards it.
A- Attainable: While this particular portion of the acronym is sandwiched in the middle, it is one that is missed more often than not, especially by small business owners, or inexperienced goal-setters of any kind. While I may start a new company tomorrow, the potential of me building a billion dollar business could definitely be there, but the potential of me having a billion dollar business by the end of the week is probably not there. If this is something that you are struggling with for your business contacting your industry's relevant trade organization in order to find a mean growth rate for like businesses would be a good idea.
R- Relevant: Set Relevant goals, this ties in with Attainable goals, be aware of how the current environment around you is going to affect your decision. For example, if you'd like to run outside everyday this year, but you live in Northern Michigan and will have 4+ feet of snow on ground for months of the winter, perhaps you should rethink your goal to simply "running everyday" that way you could run inside during the winter months and go back outside when the weather is more amenable to running. For business goals, be aware of the economic environment, how many others are you going to be competing with, what is the prevailing economic weather, all of these will factor into setting a relevant goal.
T- Time-Based: Goals simply are not going to get accomplished if you do not set a time frame in which they need to be completed. Setting this time frame allows you to measure your goal as we discussed earlier, and track your progress towards it.
Using this basic acronym in creating your goals will help you in both your personal and professional life. So next time you set a goal make sure to ask yourself "Am I setting a SMART goal?"
“If you're bored with life, if you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things, you don't have enough goals.”
― Lou Holtz
“If you're trying to be miserable, it's important you don't have any goals. No school goals, personal goals, family goals. Your only objective each day should be to inhale and exhale for sixteen hours before you go to bed again. Don't read anything informative, don't listen to anything useful, don't do anything productive. If you start achieving goals, you might start to feel a sense of excitement, then you might want to set another goal, and then your miserable mornings are through. To maintain your misery, the idea of crossing off your goals should never cross your mind.”
― John Bytheway
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