S.M.A.R.T. goals

Goal setting and achievement is something I have struggled with my entire life. Sometimes I feel like I missed the day in kindergarten where they taught us how to set goals for ourselves, and I have just been paying for that sick day the rest of my life; this is definitely not the case. Most people struggle with setting realistic goals.

I can’t be certain, but I think that the reason we struggle with this as a society is that we never really had to take ownership over our own goals. For pretty much our entire careers as students teachers give us homework, and homework is a perfectly S.M.A.R.T. goal! Now, before I get distracted complaining about the education system, let’s go over what I mean by S.M.A.R.T. goals, this is how George T. Doran originally stated them in 1981:

Specific: target a specific area for improvement.
Measurable: quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
Assignable: specify who will do it.
Realistic: state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
Time-related: specify when the result(s) can be achieved.

These goals were originally created with management in mind, which is why you may see “Assignable” and forget that you are the only person responsible for your own goals. A slightly updated version is:

Specific: target a specific area for improvement.
Measurable: quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
Achievable: state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
Relevant: ensure the target goal is actually relevant to the overarching vision.
Time-bound: specify when the result(s) can be achieved.

Now, that we have clarified what the acronym means, let’s do a quick thought experiment. Think about a time that you really wanted to be good at something or wanted to finish something, but you didn’t. Without adding any excuses or justification for not achieving it, just go over each of the attributes of S.M.A.R.T. goals and determine whether your goal had all of them. No, right? The easiest to miss for me is Time-bound, I just want something done, but I don’t care enough to ever really do it because there is no deadline.

I am still learning how to apply these in my own life, so I wish I could give some blanket advice that would just instantly solve this issue for any reader, but alas the only advice I have is to actually use S.M.A.R.T. goals. As for myself, I have set a rule that every single on of my blog posts will include a S.M.A.R.T. goal (or more). This, I hope, will lead me to learn how to set proper goals in life (and professionally too).

SMART goal: Add a S.M.A.R.T. goal at the end of all of my blog posts

_{Note: I know this isn’t technically time-bound, but I’m a bad boy what can I say.}