Originally posted 12/23/22

We’ve talked a lot about goal setting on this blog site, but as we can see, the new year is just over the horizon; I think it's a good time to get down into the weeds that can be setting goals. If you have lived out from under a rock for any time, you have likely heard the term “SMART GOALS.” It's an acronym coined in November 1981 by George Duran, Arthur Miller, and James Cunningham for a scholastic paper geared toward corporations. Since then, this acronym has become the gold standard for many on how to set and execute their goals. So today, I will walk you through how you set a SMART goal and why this could work for you.

The acronym for SMART goals stands for ;

• Specific: Who, What, Where, When, Which, and Why.

• Measurable: You have a way to measure success.

• Achievable: How will you accomplish it? Do you have the tools/ skills? If not, how and when will you get them?

• Relevant: Does this goal make sense for you, your life, and your lifestyle?

• Time Bound: This goal can’t be open-ended. It needs a timetable or starts and end date or time.

The whole idea is that for every goal you set, you fulfill these 5 structured requirements of the SMART goal. So, let's get into them and put some SMART goals together for 2023.

First, let's put a SMART goal together. I borrowed this one from the OSHU.EDU site. It's simple but a great picture of a SMART goal.

By Sunday night, I will increase my total weekly exercise minutes from 150 to 180 minutes by adding 10 minutes to my three walks this week.

This is a great example. Can you see all of the SMART parts of this goal?

Specific: The whole thing

Measurable: “...150 minutes to 180 minutes by adding 10 minutes to my three walks…”

Achievable: “adding 10 minutes to my three walks this week.” The writer is adding more time to what he’s already doing. He has the skills/tools in play already.

Relevant: “Increasing my total weekly exercise” is why this goal is achievable. It's relevant as he's already walking three times a week. It's a part of his life already. Adding 10 minutes to each walk seems incredibly relevant to the writer.

Time-Bound: “By Sunday Night…” The writer put it right up front. You could put this part anywhere you want, but it seems the most common place to put it upfront or at the end.

Let's review a few other SMART goals and see if we can dissect them further. The more you can examine others' goals, the better prepared you will be to construct one of your own.

The following SMART goal example comes from Notejoy.com's article “Smart Goals Examples For Work.”

“Spend 2 days per month building my customer understanding by shadowing teammates in operations and sales; deliver a write-up at the end on key learnings to the rest of the team.”

Specific: “Building customer understanding”

Measurable: “ 2 days a Month”

Achievable: This writer is setting this goal within their current working environment, which seems attainable.

Relevant: Assuming it's relevant to the writer, the goal seems relevant to me.

Time-Bound: This goal only talks about spending two days a month. There is no end time, due date, or end date. This goal is missing the “T” for their smart goal.

Ok, let's look at one of my goals for 2023. Let's break it down just like the others.

“By the end of the first quarter, I will add 15 minutes worth of yoga every day to my daily morning routine.”

Specific: Adding 15 minutes worth of yoga to my daily morning routine.

Measurable:” By the end of the first quarter….”

Achievable: Adding 15 minutes of yoga isn’t new for me. I regularly practice yoga, so yes, it's possible.

Relevant: This smart goal is part of a larger annual goal toward my health- yes, it's relevant.

Time-Bound: This goal must be achieved by the end of the first quarter. So I have three months between January and March to make this a daily habit. Yes, it's Time-Bound.

Can you now see how to take and make your goals SMART Goals? I write my goals down for the next year, months before December, which must be written correctly. When I go back to review my goal to be intentional about them, many of them get scrapped because they can’t fit into the format of a SMART goal. Equally, a good number of them get better and more specific.

Setting goals with this framework has been proven time and time again to be the right recipe for successful goal setting and achieving.

If you have any other way to set goals, I would love to hear about it.

Until then, I wish you a very happy holiday and a Happy New Year. See you in 2023!

Till Next Time-

Jennifer K Cooper, JKC Mobile Notary