by Michelle Homan

Created on: September 10, 2010

‘SMART’ is literally a very intelligent acronym for an efficient strategy applicable to attaining any personal goal.  Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed are the critical pieces to outlining SMART goals.  Effectively utilizing the SMART goal setting strategy can help any type of personal goal finally come to fruition.

To truly plan a SMART goal, grab a pencil and paper.  Desires become goals when they are intentionally thought about, planned, and recorded. 

For the example goal, let’s use something other than weight loss.  Weight loss may be a personal goal, however it is critical to illustrate that SMART goal setting is applicable to all personal goals—physical, mental, career, household, etc.

Example goal:  “I want to finish my Christmas shopping early this year.”

Specific

Ok, this statement indicates a desire, but is somewhat vague and subjective.  The first part of setting a SMART goal requires the goal to be as specific as possible.  Sometimes this will be easy, sometimes this will require deep though and questioning that might take days or weeks.  Using the example goal, questions such as “What date exactly would I like to be done by?”, or “Do I want to just be done shopping, or do I want everything wrapped too?” are relevant and necessary to ask.  After pondering those questions, the example goal might morph into “I want to be finished Christmas shopping by December 5th.”

Measurable

Now that a specific goal is written down on paper, a way to measure its progress is next.  Think about exactly how to go about achieving this goal.  With goals pertaining to weight loss numbers are intrinsically involved, making measuring relatively easy.  However, life goals take some more thought, hence the reason to use this example.   “I will go shopping November 13th to buy for my husband and the kids.” is a concrete benchmark that can easily be assessed as yes, it was accomplished, or no, it was not.

Achievable

Is this something can concretely be achieved?  The example goal most definitely is possible. 

Realistic

However, being sure the goal is personally realistic is crucial as well.  Honestly decide if the necessary resources are possessed to turn the goal into reality.  Is there enough time to go shopping those days?  If the answer to these types of questions are no, please don’t give up on the goal!  This just means the goal itself needs to be modified (maybe shopping needs to be done online at 1 in the morning), another goal needs to be accomplished before tackling this one, or this might just be a long-term goal.

Timed

Here is where the time line is set.  “By December 5th all Christmas shopping will be finished” But remember, setting some milestones along that time is a great way to stay on track.

So what’s your goal?  Whatever it is—weight loss, career, home organization, life, etc.—make it SMART.  Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed goals are more likely to be accomplished.  Thinking about, organizing, and putting these aspects on paper will help your goals come to fruition.

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