SMART Goal-Setting Made Easy

Some people prefer to take each day as it comes and hope for the best.  They thrive on the spontaneity of it all, and I respect that fully.  Others stay clear of goal setting because they fear the possibility of failure.  The gremlin inside their head whispers, “If I don’t set goals, then I don’t have to lament not achieving them.”  While others aren’t necessarily opposed to goal setting, they are challenged to find the time to do so.  It feels hard and time-consuming and, so, it just never gets done.

I, on the other hand, ascribe to something I heard a sales manager quip early in my career, “If the ship misses the harbor, it’s seldom the harbor’s fault.”   While I’m not averse to enjoying an occasional aimless detour, I rather enjoy charting my course, and course correcting along the way.  It’s what gets me up in the morning, and what makes life feel like an adventure.  Setting goals gives me a vision for where I’m going, keeps me on track (more or less), and gives me a way to gauge progress.

Either way, for anyone who wants to embrace or improve upon the power of setting goals, here’s a surefire way to make the process easy and SMART [pun intended].  Someone way smarter than me came up with this acronym as a way to guide the goal-setting process and to ensure that goals stick. Setting SMART goals packs punch into your goals and helps you remain accountable.

Click through to the Coach2Growth blog to see an example of how to put SMART goals to work.  Then, try it for yourself by downloading the blank template provided.

EXAMPLE:

Download here and complete the Coach2Growth SMART Goals Tool

Setting SMART goals makes the process less laborious and gives your goals a greater chance of resulting in your being able to check the box as “successfully completed.”  This in turn makes the goal-setting process more rewarding. Let’s say it’s a circular reference, in a good way.