What are SMART goals?
Setting goals and having aspirations is a common and important part of life. Goals provide us with a sense of direction, and they show us what is important to us as an individual. But setting goals can sometimes be difficult and if you have a goal that isn’t clear, it can be tough to reach when it hasn’t been clearly defined.
The SMART goals acronym is used as a guide when creating and setting goals for the future. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. Using this guide can help you to create goals that are clear and defined, increasing your chances of achieving your goals.
For the purpose of this toolkit, we are going to use the example goal of “I want to become better at cooking” and see how we can turn this into a SMART goal.
Specific
Each goal that you set should be specific to what you want to accomplish. The more specific the better! This is what will define your goal and will act as a mission statement for what you want to achieve.
To aid in making your goal specific, try to answer these W’s as you create your goal:
What – What is it you are trying to accomplish? What is involved? Feel free to add as much detail as you like.
Where – This doesn’t apply to every goal, but if there is a specific location tied to this goal, this should be identified
Why – Why do you want to achieve this goal? Why is it important to you? Why do you want to put your efforts towards this goal and not something else.
Who – Who will be involved with this goal? If it’s just you then that’s absolutely fine!
If we apply this to our example goal of “I want to get better at cooking”, we could use these W questions to make it more specific. For example:
“To become more skilled at cooking and to increase the variety of dishes that I can cook for myself and my family, I will cook new meals at home, using recipes from a cook book I already own.”
This new goal is more specific and gives a clearer direction to what they are going to do to achieve the goal. Making it more likely that the goal will be achieved.
Measurable
Your goals should be able to be measured through various metrics. Quite often this will mean adding numbers or another metric to your goal to make it measurable.
Try to answer these questions:
How many?
How often?
How will you know if you have achieved your goal?
Looking at our example goal, if we updated the goal to make it measurable this is what it could look like this:
“To become more skilled at cooking and to increase the variety of dishes that I can cook for myself and my family, I will cook three new meals every week at home, using recipes from a cook book I already own.”
This gives us a way to measure the goal and gives us something to strive for each week.
Achievable
All goals that you set should be realistic and achievable. Goals should be achievable within your current restraints (money, time, ability, etc). Setting unrealistic goals could mean that you are setting yourself up for disappointment.
Ask yourself these questions when determining if your goal is realistic and achievable:
Do I have the resources to be able to achieve this goal?
Will the time and/or money commitment required to reach this goal fit within my current schedule/budget.
Do I need to obtain anything first before I can start trying to achieve this goal?
To make a goal achievable you may need to adjust something else in your life first before you start on your new goal. Other skills or resources may need to be acquired in order to make this goal achievable.
Looking at our example goal, we would need to first work out if this goal is achievable by seeing if we have the cooking equipment and facilities necessary to achieve this goal. As well as seeing if this goal has any extra time or financial commitment by trying new recipes, and if so, seeing if this will work within our current schedule and budget.
Relevant
Your goals should be relevant to what interests you and should be relevant to what you want you to focus on and achieve.
Try to answer these questions when seeing if a goal is relevant to you:
Is this something I’m interested in?
Does this align with my lifestyle?
Is this relevant to my current situation and focuses?
Looking at our example goal, if improving your cooking isn’t something that interests you or is not relevant in our life right now, this should not be a goal you are putting effort towards achieving.
Only choose goals that are relevant to what you want and relevant to your life.
Time-bound
Any goal that you set should be time-bound. Identify a time period in which to achieve this goal, with a start and end date. Having time constrains creates motivation to keep going, making you more likely to achieve your goal.
Making the goal time-bound will also let you know if/when you have achieved your goal.
Answer these questions:
Does my goal have a hard deadline it has to be achieved by?
When do I want to achieve my goal?
How long do I want to be working on this goal for?
Are there any life constraints that would effect when I can start this goal, or constraints that would effect how long it can last?
Looking at our example goal, by making it time bound our new goal could look something like this:
“To become more skilled at cooking and to increase the variety of dishes that I can cook for myself and my family, starting from Monday 2 May I will cook three new meals every week at home consistently for three months, using recipes from a cook book I already own. At the end of the three months, I will invite my family and friends over for dinner and I will choose five of my favourite meals I learnt to cook, and will cook those meals for my family and friends at dinner.”
Doing this has set a time limit for this goal, this lets us know when we have achieved it and if we have achieved it. This will also provide motivation to keep going as there is a finish line to reach. Without a finish line it is harder to stay motivated to keep going.
And that’s how you create a SMART goal!
Using the SMART acroyn is a great way to ensure you are creating goals in a way that will help you to achieve them. One of the best things you can do to set yourself up for success when goal setting is to create clear and defined goals.
Best of luck for your goal setting adventures!
Emma