Jan 9, 2022 5 min read Career

Why YOU Need To Be SMART About Your Goals

As we all enter a new year, a common question that everyone gets ask is: So what are your goals for this year? A lot of the times, most of us have very generic or broad goals like: "I want to exercise more" or "I want to eat healthier". These are great, but it's not going to be enough to keep us accountable or make sure that we achieve them. Your goals need to be SMART.

I'll be using the same example of my own goals for each individual S-M-A-R-T goal to demonstrate the difference that it can make when your goals are SMART.

SPECIFIC

One of the most common mistakes that I have made when writing down my goals is that it is never specific enough. My goals were always generic which have made it really difficult to achieve as I wouldn't know where to start or how I would even achieve that outcome. A way to make your generic goals into more specific goals is to break it down. Create mini-goals within the big goal, this will help you understand what you need to do in order to reach it.

For example if your goal was that "I want to exercise more this year", you should then ask yourself to DEFINE what exercise means. Is that exercise playing more sports, running, going to the gym, etc. If you're able to nail down exactly what you're trying to get out of "exercising" then you'll most likely be able to achieve it a lot quicker than you think.

GENERIC GOAL: I want to exercise more this year
SPECIFIC GOAL: I want to be exercising more this year by riding a bicycle. I currently don't have one so I'll need to go buy one and purchase all the necessary safety accessories with it.

See the difference? With my generic goal, I would be lost and give up because I wouldn't know where to start. Whereas for my specific goal, just knowing that my goal is to be cycling more, I know where to begin as I don't have a bike and need to buy one, and all of the researching around it to start making it achievable.

MEASURABLE

Once we've defined our goals, we need to make sure that we'll be able to keep track of it. We need to be able to quantify it so that we can be held accountable for it. Just saying you plan to exercise more this year or cycle more this year doesn't help at all. You need to be able to back yourself by saying how many times a week or month you're planning to do it. With a number in mind, it'll make sure that you'll push yourself to reach it.

SPECIFIC GOAL: I want to cycle more this year.
SPECIFIC & MEASURABLE GOAL: I want to cycle at least 5 times a week this year.

Now that we know that we must cycle at least five times a week, it'll help us with planning our weeks to make sure that we can hit that goal.

ACHIEVABLE

So we've got a target that we must reach each week for our goals, but is it achievable? A goal is a balance between challenging and possible. If you make your goals extremely difficult, it's just not going to happen. Which is why although we must aim high, we need to make sure that it is still achievable given our current situation and the environment that we are in. Remember, goals are meant to be a long term thing, not something that we conquer overnight.

SPECIFIC & MEASURABLE GOAL: I want to cycle at least 5 times a week this year.
SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE & ACHIEVABLE GOAL: I want to cycle at least 3 times a week this year. This is challenging as I currently don't cycle at all but seems possible given that I've been running 3 times each week.

REALISTIC

One of the biggest mistakes in creating a goal is making it extremely unrealistic. It's important to understand that there will be obstacles along the way and that it's never as smooth sailing as you might think. Keep in mind MURPHY'S LAW: If anything can go wrong, it will. Hence it's important to make sure that your goals are realistic enough that even if shit hits the fan, that it'll still be achievable.

SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE & ACHIEVABLE GOAL: I want to cycle at least 3 times a week this year.
SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ACHIEVABLE & REALISTIC GOAL: I want to cycle at least 2 times a week this year, if i don't reach it for the week, i'll need to make up for it in the weeks after.

TIME-BOUND

This is one of the MOST CRITICAL components when creating your goal. It is so important to have a deadline for your goals. If you keep pushing it out or thinking you'll have more time to do it, you'll just keep delaying it. Keep in mind PARKINSON'S LAW: "work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion."

You would have definitely experienced this happen at least once in your life. Think about when you're in school and you've been given an assignment due in 4 weeks time. Be honest with yourself, who actually starts working on it the day that it's given to us? NO ONE! Most of us leave it until the last minute and pull late nights trying to get it done. Why? Because we know that we have time to get it completed so we keep delaying it until the deadline, yet we still complete it no matter what.

If you give yourself a week to complete something, you'll take a week. If you give yourself a day to complete the same task you'll get it done in a day. You get the point.

SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ACHIEVABLE & REALISTIC GOAL: I want to cycle at least 2 times a week this year, if i don't reach it for the week, i'll need to make up for it the weeks after.
SMART GOAL: I want to cycle at least twice a week starting with 5km and increase the distance by 2km every fortnight. If I am unable to increase each fortnight, then I want to be able to reach the distance but at a faster speed.

Hopefully this has made it easier for you to breakdown your new year goals to write SMART-er goals. If you've found this helpful or know someone who may be struggling to create their goals, make sure to share it with them and subscribe to the blog. Also, if you have any feedback, please feel free to send them through the contact page.