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Dear Vibrant Young Mind,
Setting goals is important for personal and professional growth. Goals work towards developing new behaviors, organizing your resources, and prioritizing your time to improve your life. Goals provide a sense of direction to your life that would otherwise be meaningless. Is setting a goal, however, sufficient? The answer is that to succeed, you must set realistic and well-defined goals. In short, your goals must be SMART.
What are SMART goals?
You've probably heard of short-term and long-term goals. But what exactly are these SMART goals?
The term SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
You should keep these parameters in mind when setting goals. It's a lot easier to track your progress and identify deviations when you set your goals against these parameters.
Here's an example of a SMART goal:
I'll get my dream job working for a SaaS firm like Shopify or Oberlo and travel as a digital nomad. To do so, I'll apply to one job per week for 2 months, submitting a total of 8 applications.
Parameters for setting SMART goals
Let's look at each element of setting a SMART goal and see how crucial it is.
1. Specific
Your goal must be specific to be achieved. When developing a SMART goal, get rid of any ambiguity or guesswork.
A specific goal should include the answers to the following questions:
What tasks must be completed?
Who is responsible for it?
What steps must be made to attain it?
Example: I will try learning French as an additional language by the end of this year by joining an online course.
2. Measurable
Setting a specific goal is a good start, but quantifying it will help you know when to stop. When your goal is measurable, you can easily track your progress and determine whether you've met your goal.
As a result, to make your goal SMART, include measurable benchmarks.
Example: I will read 12 books this year by completing 1 book every month.
3. Achievable
This parameter serves as a reality check to determine whether your goal is achievable. When your goal is attainable, the chances of accomplishing it are high. Otherwise, you'll become frustrated and quit your goal altogether.
It's easy to bite off more than you can chew when you create goals that are too big or unrealistic.
If you're a leader who sets goals for your team, you must consider the roadblocks and help your team overcome those obstacles to achieve their goals.
Example: I’ll try to reduce my weight by 5 kgs by quitting junk food and sugar.
4. Relevant
Setting goals is important, but knowing why you're setting them is even more so. Because achieving your goals will make no sense and feel irrelevant if you don't figure out why you're doing it in the first place.
Working toward these goals becomes more important if you understand why you're setting them.
Example: I’ll try to reduce my weight by 5 kgs to stay healthy and fit.
5. Time-bound
You can't just set a goal and try to attain it for the rest of your life. Make your goals time-bound, which means they must be completed in a certain period of time. This part of the SMART goal criteria keeps your daily tasks from taking precedence over your long-term goals.
Example: I” ll try to reduce my weight by 5kgs in the next 3 months by quitting junk food and sugar to stay healthy and fit.
Conclusion
When you set your goals against these parameters they become achievable, no matter how large or small. Setting SMART Goals allows you to focus your efforts and clarify your thoughts, improving the chances of achieving your goals.
You can download the SMART goals template here.