SMART Goals and More for the New Year

Now, we talked in the last episode about kind of reflecting back before we think about our new year's resolutions and our goals and the things that we're going to do. Today we're going to actually talk about goals. In that vein, I want to explain that there is something called SMART goals, and you may have heard of them, SMART. 

Each letter has a word for which it stands: 

S=Specific

M=Measurable

A=Achievable

R=Relevant

T=Timely

Now, there are sometimes variations of those words, but those are basically it. If you take each one, they can help you have good goal setting.

"Specific" means being as detailed as possible. You want to be as detailed as possible with everything in there that can tell you so specifically and succinctly what the actual goal is that you're trying to achieve. So, you might want to make a car payment and you're trying to figure out how to have that much money. You wouldn't just say, I'm going to make my car payment. You would say, I am going to raise $500 by the end of the month so that I can pay the car payment. You want it to be as specific as possible. You may even want to say how you're going to raise it by increasing my work hours, 3 hours a week. Then you really have something to sink your teeth into as you take action.

"Measurable" is something that says, basically, here is how I will know when I get there. If you look at the goal that we just said it would be, did I make the $500 by the end of the month to make the payment?

"Achievable" is something that if you're making minimum wage and you're only able to get an hour a week, that's not going to be achievable.

Therefore, it's not very "relevant" or realistic because it's not going to be able to help you get that goal very easily because we need to make things doable based on where we are in time and the circumstances that we're in.

Then "timely" is the last one, which is where we already threw that into the specifics and that timely is end of the month...maybe January 30th or 31st. We want to make sure we have all of those elements in there.

Now, that's a pretty standard way to do some goal setting, but what I like to do with it is change it a little bit to give it a little more power.

With specific, I try to throw all those goodies in there like I just shared, but then I like to also look at what is needed. What do I need? Is it possible for me to do this? What do I need to be able to achieve this? For instance, you don't have a job, then you need to get a job first, right. It's very important to have the tools that you need to be able to do it.

Another question I like to throw in there is what could go wrong so that we could plan for things that might not be foreseen that easily when we're making these goals. What could go wrong is maybe the boss is shutting down for the whole month of January because they're renovating the shop or changing processes at work, so you're not going to get that many hours. 

So, what do I need? What could go wrong and what will I do? Go back and say, okay, let's rework this goal for making allowances for the things that might come in or the things that I don't have access to that will allow me to realistically hit this goal and make it something doable.

To go back and revisit the goals is the really big piece. You don't want to just say, okay, I didn't hit that goal. Like so many people this time of year, make a goal of getting in shape or losing weight, and those are fine goals. Be more specific about them, such as I will lose five pounds by working out three days a week for 15 minutes at a time walking on my treadmill at home. Now, if you don't have a treadmill, then that's a need and that's not going to work, but if you do, you put that all together.

But let's say that you're looking at, is this working or not? Before you give up, you may want to say, well, what's not working about this goal? Okay, well, I have it in my schedule that I'm going to do it at 6 every morning, but I actually don't wake up until 7. Well, then you need to rework the goal.

The big thing is to keep the goal front and center in writing, revisit it and tweak it as necessary. Because as things come up that you weren't aware of, rather than chuck the goal, find out what got in the way so that you can revise it. Revamp it so that it does work for you. Instead of trying to get on the treadmill at 6 when you don't wake up till 7, either go to bed earlier the night before so that you can get up and do it at 6 or put the time you're going on the treadmill later in the day.

Sometimes you might need to rearrange when things happen. You might need to tweak other things in your life to make the specifics possible. When you really look at it and ask yourself what is working, what isn't and what will I do now? It helps you not to throw out the overall goal because the goal is likely something very good for you to try to achieve. Don't throw out the goal. Figure out where in the process you're going off track and what you need to revise. All right, that's it for today. I hope you have fun looking towards the new year and designing your goals. Go take on the day!