Kelly KleinThere’s something about this time of year that inspires people to set goals for the new year. I don’t like calling them resolutions. I prefer the term GOALS.
It’s a great time to reflect on the accomplishments and failures of the past year. But to also look ahead to the new year – your hopes, dreams, and goals.
There’s something about the colourful lights and being together with family that inspires me to set meaningful goals.
I fully believe that anyone can start from anywhere and get their dreams…no matter what the dream is, how old the person is, their personality traits, or their circumstances.
So today, I’m going to lead you through how to set a meaningful goal with actionable steps. I use the framework SMART.
- Specific
- Measureable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
Specific
You need to be specific. The best way to do this is to answer the five W questions:
- Who do you need to involve?
- What is the goal?
- When is covered under the time-bound part of the acronym below.
- Where do you need to be to accomplish the goal?
- Why this goal, what is your ‘why’?
Measurable
If your goal isn’t measurable, how will you know you have reached it? If you’re writing a book, what is your word count goal? If you’re losing weight, how many pounds would you like to lose? If you want to hit a certain metric in your job, or sales in your business, what is that metric, what number of sales?
Achievable
It is important to stretch yourself, but not to the extreme. Writing and publishing ten books in one year is usually not possible if you’ve never published before, unless you have very little other responsibilities. However, if you’ve never written a book before and you decide you will write and publish one book this year, then that may stretch you, but is also achievable.
Or if you want to lose weight, no one can lose 25 pounds in two weeks. However, losing one or two pounds a week until you hit your goal of 25 pounds is perfectly achievable, even if you’re not used to working out or eating healthy. It will stretch you, but not break you.
Relevant
Is the goal relevant? Will it move you forward? If you want to be a published author, then writing a book would be a perfect goal, considering your goal fits the criteria. However, if you don’t want to be an author, and it has nothing to do with the path you want to follow, then writing a book would not be a good goal. You might be a doctor who works in a clinic, but would like to have your own practice. That is a relevant goal based on your chosen profession. Or if you wanted to completely change your career, and you want to take some university courses to further yourself in the field you’re interested in. That would be completely in line with your goals. However, you might think it a good idea to take courses in something not related to your end goal. There’s nothing wrong with taking classes just because of an interest, but if it gets in the way of your goals, it might be something to push aside for now.
Time-Bound
Give your goal a deadline. It gives you something to shoot for. Even if you don’t achieve it on the deadline, I’m willing to bet you would be a lot further than if you didn’t set the deadline at all. Decide what you can do today to move toward your goal. What can you do this week? This month? Next month? Six months? It helps to break up your goal into manageable chunks, so it isn’t so overwhelming.
Actionable Steps
Remember when setting goals, to create actionable steps. What steps do you need to take to get to your goal? What is the logical order of the steps?
I wish you all the best in your running for goals!
Be awesome and may your life be passionate!
