What You Need to Know About SMART Goal Setting

Goals are important tools that can help you stay focused and bring you closer to the kind of career and life you envision for yourself. Goals help in measuring your progress and provide inspiration to make your way through problems and obstacles. It gives you control of your life and environment and keeps you from getting stressed and anxious about the future.

SMART Goal Setting

SMART goal setting is proven to be a very effective method of setting goals that are practical, effective and purposeful. So, what exactly is SMART goal setting? And what does SMART stand for?

S stands for Specific

It is important that your goal is as specific and as clearly defined as possible. There should be no conditionality or ambiguity to your goal. This will help create a clear point of focus and helps you channelize your energy properly. ‘I will generate new business tomorrow’ is an unspecific goal. On the other hand, ‘I will call up 10 new business contacts tomorrow’ is far more specific. The hallmark of a specific goal is that it includes the action that you need to take to achieve the goal.

M stands for Measurable

It is important that you are able to measure your goals. Else you will not be clear on the progress you have made. In the previous example, ‘I will call up 10 new business contacts tomorrow’ is a measurable goal. Either you do call 10 business associates or you do not. If you do not, you can easily measure how short you fell and create a plan to avoid these shortfalls.

A stands for Achievable

It is important that your goal is achievable. If it is not, you are likely to feel discount ant your progress and frustrated at your lack of results. It is therefore important to keep both your strengths and limitations in mind before you start your goal setting activity. In the same example, if you are someone who is mortified of reaching out to people, calling 10 people may be unachievable for you. On the other hand, if you no compunctions about calling people and reaching out to them, then 10 people would indeed be an achievable goal for you.

R stands for Realistic

When setting your goals, it is crucial that you are being realistic. If your goals are unrealistic, your likelihood of achieving them is very little. You will end up very frustrated dealing with failure and lack of results. In the previous example, is 10 people were to be substituted with 100 people, the goal would automatically be unrealistic. It would be humanly impossible to reach out to 100 people in a day and have result-oriented conversations with each one of them. Calling 10 people, on the other hand is a realistic goal.

Timely

Time is a very important component of SMART goal setting. Without a timeline, it would be impossible to measure your goals. In the same example, if the word ‘tomorrow’ was missing, the goal would become ambiguous and indefinable. Calling 10 business contacts is not the only important part of the goal, the timeline is equally important in helping you achieve the results you want.