S.M.A.R.T Goals: Refining your goal for success
Last week, we discussed the magic of setting actual goals: setting a due date and then drawing our dreams down out of the ether by writing them down in the physical realm to help make them real. This week, we are going to talk about how to make sure that your goals are also S.M.A.R.T. goals.
Yes, it’s one of those acronym things that everyone uses to help remember the elements. And yes, it also means that goals set using the ideas inside the acronym are actually smart.
Specific
A goal is specific when it is clear. Write your goal in a way that is clear, direct, and, well . . . SPECIFIC.
When it comes to monetary goals, the closer you can come to quantifying it, the more specific you are. So if your goal was “save enough money to go to Hawaii”, you would be hard-pressed to know what that meant. Does it just mean economy airfare? Or do you want business-class travel? What about the type of place you want to stay, and other things you might want to do?
When it comes to writing a specific goal, sometimes it’s just the wording. “Speak tourist-level Italian by the time we go on our family trip next March” or “memorize the lyrics to ‘Da Butt’.” But sometimes, as in the case of that Hawaiian vacation, you might need to do some actual research. How many people are going? What will airfare and hotel and ground transportation and inter-island travel and meals cost? Then use that research to figure out an actual amount of money you need to save.
Measurable
This is where you add something you can measure to your goal. It could be the level of fluency in Italian, or the number of dollars needed for your vacation, or the number of pages or chapters written in your manuscript. It could be the amount of time you spent working on clearing out your guest room to create a meditation/yoga room for yourself, or the amount of hours you have practiced the ukulele.
This part of your goal will allow you to determine whether you are on track, and help you to know when you have achieved your goal.
Actionable & Attainable
Some folks will tell you that the A. in S.M.A.R.T. goals means actionable. Some say achievable or attainable. I say that all of those things are correct, but attainable and achievable are synonyms, so we only need to focus on two of the words.
Actionable goals are those that are within your control, and on which you can take action. “Save $3500 for a trip for two to Hawaii” is actionable. Whether you save the money or not is up to you. “Win a trip to Hawaii” is not actionable, because it’s not within your control. Sure, entering sweepstakes for that trip is in your control, but the outcome is up to someone else.
The same goes when writing a book. “Write a historical novel about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire” is within your control, and you can break it into steps (research, writing, editing, submitting it, etc.). “Write an award-winning (or best-selling) article about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire” is only partly actionable. Yes, you can take care of the writing and submitting it part. But whether it gets accepted for publication is not up to you (unless you decide to self-publish). Whether it becomes a best-seller or award-winner is also not up to you—it relies on a whole lot of factors and a lot of other people, from the editors to the cover designers to the marketing department to booksellers to members of the general public.
As you can see above, a goal that is actionable is one you can act on.
Achievable: A goal that is achievable is one that you can attain or achieve on your own. It is something you can actually reach—this word includes the idea of it being actionable as well as realistic (see below). Do you have the skills to do this? If not, can you acquire them?
Which brings us to the next letter: R.
Realistic & Relevant
Relevant: Does it make sense to you? Will it help you to achieve your dream?
For example: If your dream is to spend an entire year living in a cottage in Italy, then learning Italian at the conversational or fluent level would decidedly be useful. If your dream is to spend 10 days touring the major cities of Italy, then tourist-level Italian might be good enough, and becoming fluent might be overkill. (Though really, learning another language just to learn it is entirely valid, in my books.)
Realistic: Just what it says. Given your time constraints, knowledge, skills, and abilities, is this goal something that you can realistically accomplish?
If you have a month to save up $10,000, and you only earn $5,000 at your job, that goal might be unrealistic. (Note: It also may not be, depending on what you want that money for, and whether you have other things you could do or sell in order to be able to pay your bills and also save that money.) If you have five years to save that $10,000, then you are looking at $2,000 per year, which is $167 a month.
Similarly, if you want to write and record a song to post on YouTube to go along with the release of your next book or art show, but you don’t play an instrument or understand music composition and you don’t have a YouTube channel, that goal isn’t entirely realistic. You would first need to set some other preliminary goals to help you achieve it: perhaps learning to play the guitar, piano or ukulele; getting help with song-writing from someone; and/or setting up an account and learning how to use YouTube.
What is “realistic” will vary depending on circumstances, but you should make sure that your goal allows enough time for you to achieve it, even if there are skills or other things that you need to learn or develop along the way.
Time-Bound
Sometimes called “timely”, this means that your goal has a due date or deadline to it.
If you are under contract for a book, you will be given a deadline by the publisher for the manuscript to be turned in. Similarly, you will have a deadline for edits and for copy edits. Those due dates exist for a reason: to make sure that things get done and that production is moving along.
If you have a goal that you want to reach, a time limit is key (as we discussed last week). Otherwise it’s just a wish or dream, with a “someday” attached.
I am a firm believer that if you can dream it, you can do it. It requires some grit and determination, but mostly it requires you to believe in yourself, believe in your dream, set smart goals, and pursue them with purpose.
