Smart people set their goals the SMART way

Photo by Mihai Lazăr on Unsplash

As life is a constant journey towards betterment, you wish to be in a better position in the course of time. A goal speaks about where you want to be as the time goes by. Hence you need to set a goal for every area of improvement you have felt. A well-stated goal gives you motivation to work towards its realization.

While all of us have goals, many times they remain as vague idea at the back of mind. You think about what you want to achieve, but not in concrete terms. Rather, a clearly stated goal alone can boost your energy and drive you along the course of action. Smart people have clear cut goals at the top of their mind and are energized by them, because they have put each goal in black and white in SMART way.

SMART is an acronym that should remind you of how your goal statement should be: S-Smart, M-measurable, A-attainable, R-Relevant, and T-Time bound.

Let us analyze these characteristics of an ideal goal statement by taking an example. Suppose you would like to become rich and state it as a goal. Now, question yourself regarding the goal with respect to each characteristic included in the SMART acronym. If your statement of goal answers all those questions satisfactorily, then you stated your goal the SMART way.

S-Specific: Specificity requires your goal to be related to one thing and not others. 'To become rich' could refer to becoming rich in knowledge, rich in money, rich in wealth, rich in health and fitness, rich in resources, etc. Let your goal be related to only one of these things, say, 'To become wealthy'.

The characteristics of specificity could also detail how you wish to become what you intend to become. For example, 'To become wealthy by doing a business', 'To become wealthy by moving up the ladder in my career', or 'To become wealthy by working abroad'.

M-Measurable: Include a means of ascertaining to what extent you have achieved the goal, by making it measurable. Our example goal can be quantified by stating it as 'To increase my wealth by ten times'.

A-Attainable: Consider the money, skills, time, and other resources that are currently with you and could be obtained in future to decide whether the goal is viable to be achieved by me. If you think to increase the wealth by ten times is too unrealistic, modify it to 'To increase my wealth by two times'.

R-Relevant: The goal you are setting should align with your life purpose and vision. You should have an answer to the question, 'Why I should have this goal?' In other words, achievement of the goal should add meaning to your life. Consider the immediate and long term priorities of your life and let the goal you set be related to those priorities.

For example, a goal of 'Obtaining a diploma in research methodology' may be relevant if you are going to pursue a serious research assignment or a PhD in your field of work. The same could become irrelevant if you aim to make a career in a non-research area.

T-Time bound: Mention when you will reach the goal. There is no meaning in saying, 'I will increase my wealth by two times, but I do not know when.' You have to fix a deadline for every goal or even every stage of accomplishing it. Hence, our example goal could look like, "To increase my wealth by two times in five years."

Any goal you write should have SMART characteristics to keep you enthusiastic on the track of success and achieve it for sure.

Here are some examples of smart goals. Try to figure out the SMART characteristics in them.

• 'I will read at least 4 books about e-commerce in the next three months.'

• 'I will reduce my weight by 5 kilos in the next 6 months by means of exercising and natural diet.'

• 'Our company will expand the operations to South Asian region by the next year to double our sales.'

• 'We will mobilize contributions to create a corpus of $50000 by the end of this year for the purpose of funding a charity project.'

Goals allow you to control

the direction of change

in your favor

-  Brian Tracy