SMART goals

In the last post on New Year Resolutions I introduced SMART goals. If you haven't heard if them SMART is an acronym for making sure your goals are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. When we decide we want to change or achieve something it is not usually a small thing. It is usually a big goal that will take some time and energy to achieve. Sometimes the sheer size of the goal or the amount of work we need to do to achieve it can seem overwhelming, a little bit like this picture with the couple looking at the large island across the water and wondering how and if they can get there. Well an easy way to do this is with some planning when you are setting you goals.

In SMART goals when we talk about them being specific, we are talking about them being clear and well defined, for example if you want to get healthy, what does that mean? How do you change you level of health, how can you tell it has changed? Measurable, refers to the goal having specific criteria that we can measure progress against so we know when we can say the goal has been achieved, for example if you want to lose weight, how much weight do you want to loose or what size clothes do you want to fit into? Essentially, you need to make your goal achievable. You might want to drop three sizes in clothing before an upcoming event, but if the event is in one month are you setting yourself up for failure by setting an unrealistic goal. Perhaps a more realistic goal would be to aim to lose half a kilo a week. Lastly is timely, you need to have a start and end date to your goal to keep you motivated. Having a deadline can help keep you focused on your behaviour and working towards that goal and we all know the feeling of saying I'll start on Monday or next week and then that day never arrives.

If you have a really big goal that you want to achieve it might be better to have several smaller goals or milestones so you can celebrate your success along the way. This can help motivate you to continue working towards your goal rather than constantly working towards one far off goal that never seems to get any closer. An example of this is if you are a uni student, you could consider successfully completing each session a milestone to celebrate because it is a smaller step that is getting you closer to your destination rather than focusing on your goal of graduating that may be three years away or more. It can be very difficult to maintain motivation when your end goal is a long way away and involves a lot of work to get there.

I would love to hear from you. Is there something you want to achieve in 2020? Perhaps it is a goal you have been working towards for a long time, how is your progress so far? If it is a new goal, how prepared are you? Are you in the action stage, have you revised your goal in line with the SMART principles?

Wishing you success in 2020, I hope you have a great New Year. May you reach your goals and achieve whatever you set out to do.