The GoalTribe Blog

Better! Faster! Smarter! That’s how you want to set goals, right? Oh – and you want it to be easy too. There’s one popular strategy for setting goals that captures all the main keys to goal setting in one easy-to-remember mnemonic: S.M.A.R.T. Much of the advice here is from “Goal Setting Theory” which is recognized by psychologist as one of the most well-proven motivational theories. Here are the 5 parts of setting S.M.A.R.T. goals:

1. Specific: Make sure your goal statement defines a clear, unambiguous result. For example: “Run 3 times a week for a year”, not “Start running”.
2. Measurable: Have a clear way to tell when the goal has been accomplished. For example: “Lose 5 pounds”, not “Lose weight”.
3. Attainable: You have to believe you can achieve the goal. You can both adjust the goal to your self-image, and adjust your self-image to realize your incredible potential.
4. Rewarding: You have to be excited about achieving the goal. There has to be some reason, some emotion, to drive you through the work to succeed. Why do you want to achieve this?
5. Timebound: It doesn’t really become a goal until you set a target date to achieve it. That’s when you ignite the rocket and begin taking action every day to succeed.

There are several variations on what the S.M.A.R.T. mnemonic stands for. These are the ones I find most effective from my experience. You can learn about all of them from the S.M.A.R.T. Goals Wikipedia article.

Reference: Locke, Edwin A. (2001) Motivation by Goal Setting, Handbook of Organization Behavior, 2:43-54

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