SMART Goals

It is all about setting SMART goals!

Millions of words have been written about goal setting. Millions of people set goals. Yet, most goals set by most people remain unfulfilled. Follow these steps and you will accomplish your goals. Fail to follow these and you probably will not. Just the simple explanation of how and why to set and ACCOMPLISH goals.

YOUR GOALS MUST BE SMART!!!

1. Specific
Goals like "I want to be rich" are not worth the paper they are printed on. Rich must be defined. $1 million in the bank might mean rich to most people but it means poor to many others. It is the same for more ethereal goals. I want to be happy means nothing. Happy must be defined just as rich must be defined. I want to be spiritually fulfilled is the same...meaningless, unless defined.What does rich mean to you? Exactly. What does happy mean to you? Don't know exactly? Then how on earth will you ever even know if you get there? I have met a lot of people who say that they are on a spiritual path. I like to ask where that path is leading. Most can't say anything specific. It is all very nebulous. If your destination is not defined, how in heaven's name will you know if and when you get there?

2. Measurable
A goal is measurable if you can measure the results. For example, a goal to "build a better website" isn't measurable. Do you mean better for customers? Better articles? Better design? And how will you judge that you're better? A measurable goal would be "Create 10 new articles by February" That is measurable. If you write 9 articles, you haven't reached it and if you write 11, you have.

3. Attractive/achievable
You need to create goals that you can accomplish. Some coaches will tell you to set "stretch" goals - goals that are so ridiculously high that only a giant could achieve them. The idea is that if you're striving for the moon, you might climb a tall mountain. Unfortunately, most people get discouraged by these types of goals. Instead of continuing to strive for the unattainable, we give up and stick with the status quo.

4. Realistic
Realistic goals don't have to be easy. One way to make a goal realistic is to change the time frame. For example, it might be impossible to grow your pageviews from 100 per week to 100,000 per week in 2 weeks. But in a year? two years? Another thing you can do to make difficult goals more realistic is to come up with a plan of attack. Rather than a goal to get to 100,000 pageviews by next year, you set a goal to write 3 new blog posts a week by February. Then you see how that's affected your pageviews. Don't make your site goals too easy, either. Doing that tells your sub-conscious that you're not very capable, and in fact can't reach even simple goals. Also, when you set a goal that is hard but realistic, you will feel more accomplishment when you complete it.

5. Time related
Everything exists in space and time. If something is not defined precisely in space and time, it does not exist. A goal of someday, I'd like to be financially secure, or someday, I'd like to climb that mountain does not, and it is highly likely that it WILL NOT ever, exist as anything other than nebulous wishful thinking. You must set specific times for your goals to be made manifest OR you will be forever going towards you goals and never quite reaching them.

All your goals also need to be written down. If it exists only in your head, it is only wishful thinking. This is the basic, proven by experience, truth of the matter...95% of people who have specific written goals, accomplish them; and 95% of people who have unwritten goals (specific or not) do not. If you can read that sentence and not begin immediately to write down your goals, you might as well resign yourself to the fact that you will not accomplish what you imagine you want to be, do and have in life.Yes, there are those few high achievers who manage to set clear distinct goals without writing them down and also manage to stay focused on them for their entire lives. Don't kid yourself...you are not one of those people. I'll prove it to you. Tell me (or anyone) right now exactly, specifically and in full detail what goals you held 1,000 days ago.

Write them down. Period. Now.

- CBH