We all want to make changes in our life, but for a lot of us, we don’t know where to start or have enough drive to make it happen.
Once you figure out what you want to change (or what you want something in your life to look like), it is only a matter of figuring out the steps you need to take to get there. Each month, quarter, and year I look over my own goals in different areas of my life: personal, spiritual, health, family, financial, and occupational. I also set goals in the short term (month, quarter, year) and long term (5 years, 10 years, 20 years).
Since setting goals will definitely help you make the changes you need in your life, how exactly should you set your goals? Of course, I can’t speak to what will work for you specifically, but an approach that works for many people, myself included, is to follow a framework first defined by George T. Doran, who described the need to set S.M.A.R.T. goals.
What Exactly are S.M.A.R.T. Goals?
S.M.A.R.T. goals check each of the following boxes. They are:
- SPECIFIC: Specific goals are well defined and clear on what needs to be accomplished. What needs to happen for you to consider the goal accomplished?
- MEASURABLE: Measurable goals enable you to evaluate whether or not the goal was achieved or not. What gets measured gets managed! Can you track progress allowing for changes? How will you decide whether the goal is completed or not?
- ATTAINABLE: Attainable goals are realistic about what is possible given your knowledge, time, and resources. Be honest about how likely it is that you will accomplish this goal.
- RELEVANT: Relevant goals are important to you but also move you closer to what you want your life or an area of your life to look like. This is especially important when setting short term goals that move you closer to your long-term goals.
- TIME-BASED: Time-based goals lock you into a specific timeframe and deadline for completion. This is the secret sauce for getting things done. When will you complete the goal by?
S.M.A.R.T. Goals in Practice
Try setting some S.M.A.R.T. goals, then check in on those goals every week and come up with the tasks that you need to do each week to move you closer to your goals. You are guaranteed to be closer to where you want to be, even if you miss the mark.
Let’s run through an example of what this process might look like.
Your SMART Goal: “My goal is to walk 100 miles in October.”
- It is specific: You know exactly what needs to happen.
- It is measurable: You can measure how many miles you walk with a wearable device/phone, or after-the-fact by charting out your route on a map.
- It is attainable: This, of course, varies from person to person. If 100 miles isn’t an attainable number, pretend the goal was 50! For the sake of the example, 100 is attainable for the person setting the goal.
- It is time-based: We know the goal is to be met by October 31.
If you really want to get into the details of what meeting this goal might look like on a weekly basis, here’s some hypothetical planning/check-in scenarios (if you don’t want the details, skip to here.):
Pre-Planning
Leading up to the first week in October, maybe you take a look at your calendar and do some tentative planning. If there’s 31 days in October, you know you need to walk approximately 3.25 miles every day to meet your goal in time. Since weekdays tend to be busier with work, you plan to walk 3 miles each weekday and 4 miles each weekend day (knowing that 1-2 of those miles each day are completed simply by walking around the office, to/from the car, running errands, etc.)
Week One Check-In
You are about 3 miles shy of being “on track” to complete 100 miles in October. First, you CELEBRATE the fact that you completed 20 miles, which is more than you usually walk in a week! Then, you re-focus and adjust your plan for the following week. You make a plan to park at the back of the parking lot, take the stairs every chance you get, and set a timer to get up and do a quick walk down the hall and back every hour, knowing that over the course of a week, those numbers can easily add up to a couple of miles.
Week Two Check-In
After the second week, you’re ahead of schedule! Those little steps here and there added up more than you expected. You even felt motivated to use the bathroom on a different floor of the office/house just to move more each day. You breathe a little sigh of relief, because the weather isn’t looking as good this week, so it will be nice to not feel as pressured to go outside for a walk if it’s raining.
Week Three Check-In
You are feeling GOOD about the progress you’ve made. You make a mental note of how proud you are of what you’ve accomplished. Over the last week, the weather wasn’t great, but you remembered seeing a couple of people power-walking around the mall last time you were there and decided to take a note from their book and take a stroll around the floors of the Mall of America, putting in a few extra miles that day. Overall, you’re still a few miles ahead of schedule.
Week Four Check-In
With just a few days left to go in October, you’ve fallen back to right-on-schedule. You came down with a cold this past week and didn’t get in quite as many steps as you allowed your body the rest it needed. You still feel confident that you can get in the last several miles to make it to 100 by the end of the month.
October 31 Check-In
You’ve walked way more miles this month than you think you’ve walked in any October, ever! We know life isn’t always perfect, so maybe you only made it to 97 miles. Or maybe you went above and beyond to 103. Either way, you made it to 97%+ of your goal, and you are happy with that progress. Then, you decide to set a new goal, basing the attainability on this experience (modifying to decrease/increase based on the past month).
Words of Wisdom
Don’t let fear stop you from starting. Small changes over time is the best way to create lasting change. Consistency is key!
Having accountability is also a huge influence for many people on how close they come to meeting this goals. Share your goals with family members, friends, and/or doctors, especially if they can help you in any way!
Finally celebrate when you accomplish your goal. Make it a big deal and your brain will feel the reward, making your next goal easier to achieve.
