Coaching for Life Success – Goals #3 SMART Goals
I have been blogging about goals. Today a look at a specific goal setting technique – SMART Goals.
SMART is an acronym for:
Specific Goals
Measurable Goals
Attainable Goals
Relevant Goals
Time-Bound Goals
Let’s look at the first two concepts today – SPECIFIC and MEASURABLE
Specific goal: If you are in college maybe you have a ‘goal’ of ‘getting good grades this semester’; maybe you have a goal of ‘losing weight’. Unless you are working on these ‘goals’, they are only wishes. I have a goal to have a comfortable income in a job I enjoy sounds good, but if I am not working on it, again, it is only a wish.
Let’s look at this goal: By December 31st, I will weigh no more than 200 pounds. Isn’t that more specific than ‘I want to lose weight? (That is assuming that you are over 200 pounds).
By December 31st, 2020 (two years in the future as I write this), I will have a permanent job with a company I like and respect, making at least $60,000 a year before taxes, in Dallas Texas. Sure it isn’t quite as specific as “By December 31st, 2020, I will be working for Ernst and Young in Dallas Texas making $64,259 before taxes; living in a great apartment, with a short commute”. (The second would be more specific)
The more specific your goals are, the better it is. Specific goals give us a definite purpose. President John Kennedy gave us a specific goal “First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth” (see: https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/jfk_speech_text.html). Kennedy continued with specific funding considerations, weather satellites and more.
If you are playing basketball there is a specific goal – put the ball into the basket. Let’s say you are learning archery – you can shoot your arrows at a lot of things, the specific goal is to get a bull’s eye on the target.
The concept of a specific goal is that you can reach it or not – that is – is it measurable.
So, the second aspect of SMART goals is whether the goal can be reached.
Kennedy’s goal was measurable – we did it – or we didn’t make it. When you set a SMART goal for losing weight – like by December 31st, I will weigh no more than 200 pounds – you know on December 31st if you met your goal or not. A vague ‘wish’ might be “By December 31st I will have lost weight”. So, if you lost an ounce it would be measurable, but probably not the goal you wanted.
Tomorrow – the ART or SMART goals.
Start thinking about specific and measurable goals. I will share some of my goals tomorrow.
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