If your planning out the next year, quarter, month or week, its likely that you will be setting some goals
Goals are really useful in helping you to define what you want to achieve and then to track them through to completion.
Join me to now to talk about a common technique you can use when setting goals.
BREAK
What is a goal?
From the Merriam-Webster dictionary it is
the end toward which effort is directed
It’s not something that is complicated
It’s not something that has to be difficult
It’s just the end result that you are working towards
One of the most common techniques used to define a goal is the SMART method
You have likely heard about SMART goals.
We’re going to spend a few minutes now to explore what a SMART goal is
SMART is an acronym to allow us to easily remember how best to come up with goals
The first letter is S. This stands for specific
This is the who, what, where for the goal
It’s is used to describe what you want to do
An example, you could want to have some money
To be specific you would say “I want some money in my Savings account”
But this does not fully describe the goal
We next add in the M – or Measurable
This tells you how you know that you have met the goal
So our example would become
“I will have $200,000 in my Savings account”
We now know the trigger to show we have done what we wanted to do
The next thing is the A to make sure the goal is Achievable
It’s easy to write a goal that you have no chance of achieving.
But these are being pointless and end up damaging your morale.
A goal that can not be achieved is not a goal, it’s a threat.
It leads to people not even trying
When setting a goal make sure it is something that is achievable
That does not mean it should be easy to achieve
It needs to challenge your skills and knowledge
It needs to enable you to grow
Back with our example having $200,000 is not achievable
So we rewrite the goal to be “have $2,000 in my Savings account”
We now look at the R – this is for Relevant
The goal should be relevant to you
It should be something that meets one your targets or needs
Think of this as the “why” of the goal
Why is the goal important to you and your work or life
It helps you understand the reason for the goal
Coming back to our example, we may modify it to
“I will have $2,000 in my savings account so I can go on vacation to Bali”
The final letter T – this stands for time bound or timely
This is the timeframe in which the goal should be achieved
Most people will deny it, but we all love deadlines
We like to know when something needs to be done by
It gives us a target to aim for.
It gives us a goal!
Back with our example. Our goal becomes
“By 31 December I will have $2,000 in my Savings account so I can go on vacation to Bali”
By applying the SMART principle our goal went from
“have some money” to
“By 31 December I will have $2,000 in my Savings account so I can go on vacation to Bali”
We understand the goal. We know why we are doing it
We knows when it needs to be done by and we know how we can measure its success
We have our target and we can track progress towards it
Do you have some goals you are working towards?
Have you used the SMARt technique to define the goals?
If you have can you drop them in a comment?
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To summarise, we all need to have goals to help us
One of the best ways to do this is to define them using the SMART goals technique
This makes the goal
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
And Time Bound
Once we have defined our goals we can then work towards them and track progress
This helps us to stay on track
It helps us to get the results we deserve
If you are having trouble defining your goals why not get in touch with me
I have a number of techniques that we can work through to help you to set, track and meet your goals
Working together you can get the results you deserve
Please reach out to me on 0415 591672
I am based in Australia so please use the international dialling code +61 if calling from another Country
You can also email me on garry@nextactions.com.au
or visit nextactions.com.au where you will find a link to book a free short introductory call
Do you have any topics you’d like me to cover
If you do please drop a comment below
And I’ll add to the list of upcoming videos
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I’ll talk to you again soon
