Cracking the Code of SMART Goals for Success
Setting goals is a fundamental aspect of career development and any development at all, really. Whether you're looking to advance in your current role, switch industries, or launch your own business, having clear and achievable goals can pave the way for success. One proven method for effective goal-setting is the SMART goals framework. In this blog post, we will explore how to crack the code of SMART goals and leverage this powerful tool for career advancement. Let’s dig in!
Understanding SMART Goals.
There is a reason an abbreviation exists to help us set goals. It is simply not enough to think of goals without having it written down, planned out and broken down into something attainable. After all, we want the goal to be reachable. Writing down your goals helps you create a commitment. However, it is not enough just to wrote down anything you think is a goal, as not all goals are equal. This is where the concept of SMART goals comess in. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Let's break down each component:
Specific: Define your goals with clarity and precision. Instead of a vague goal like "improve my skills," aim for something like "complete a professional certification course in my field."
Measurable: Quantify your goals to track progress and success. For instance, "increase annual sales by 20%" is a measurable goal, ''learn 200 words in Japanese'' is also measurable.
Achievable: Set goals that are challenging yet attainable. Consider your current skills, resources, and timeframe. You need something that is realistic with a certain amount of effort that is possible.
Relevant: Ensure your goals align with your long-term career aspirations and overall objectives. Aiming to do a cooking class when your aspiration might be to be a marketing specialist might not be the best idea. However, if you are planning to work in marketing in the food industry, then that might actually be a good idea, after all. Do you see how relevance can change?
Time-bound: Establish a realistic timeline for achieving your goals. Having a deadline creates a sense of urgency and accountability. It will also give you a sense of satisfaction and increase self-confidence once you reach your goal within the time-frame you have given yourself at the start.
“Goal setting is the most important aspect of all improvement and personal development plans. It is the key to all fulfillment and achievement”
Benefits of Setting SMART Goals.
The benefits of implementing SMART goals are manifold. Clarity and specificity help individuals maintain focus and motivation, reducing distractions and increasing productivity. Measurability allows for progress tracking, enabling individuals to assess their performance and make informed decisions. Achievability ensures that goals are attainable, fostering a sense of accomplishment and boosting self-confidence. Relevance helps individuals stay connected to their values and long-term vision, aligning short-term objectives with larger aspirations. Time-frames and creating a goal that is time-boound gives you a deadline by when you should have put your plan to action and have visible fruits of your labor at hand. It helps drive individuals to take action and make tangible progress towards their goals.
Steps to Setting SMART Goals.
If you are planning on creating goals (as most of us do all the time!) here is a very good guideline to get you started. To establish SMART goals effectively, consider the following steps:
Identify Specific Objectives: Clearly define the desired outcome, specifying what needs to be achieved. You need to dig a bit deeper into your goal here and find any particularities you can. This will help us in our next steps.
Set Measurable Milestones: Break down the goal into smaller, measurable steps that can be tracked and evaluated. This will also help you to keep motivation steady throughout your goal achieving process. Basically, do a step-by-step guideline of how you will reach your goal, kind of like a ladder to the end goal.
Ensure Achievability: Assess your resources, skills, and capacity to determine if the goal is realistic and feasible. You don’t really want to overestimate yourself if you are lacking time, resources or finances for something so you have to be realistic here. If necessary, you can postpone your goal and plan it our for a time when it would be possible to achieve it.
Establish Relevance: Connect the goal to your values, aspirations, and long-term vision to ensure it is meaningful and aligned with your objectives.
Define a Realistic Timeline: Set a deadline for goal completion, creating a sense of urgency and providing a framework for progress monitoring.
Overcoming Challenges in Setting SMART Goals:.
While setting SMART goals can be empowering, individuals may encounter obstacles and setbacks along the way. To navigate these challenges successfully, it is essential to:
Identify potential obstacles and develop strategies to overcome them. If you have a time restriction, you can postpone a goal. If you have a financial restriction, find a way to gain resources to eliminate this obstacle.
Adapt goals as needed based on changing circumstances or new information. In case you were planning on finishing a specific course to advance your career, but the requirements have changed now to attending live-workshops, be flexible enough to reasses your goal and tweak the steps necessary to achieve it.
Seek support and accountability from mentors, peers, or professional coaches to stay motivated and on track. I can never stress enough the importance of having a support system that is there to reassure you and keep you focused on achieving the goal you set.
The best way to learn is by practice. I will give you a few examples of how you can set SMART goals and after reading through, I am sure you will have a better idea on how to set them for yourself.
EXAMPLE 1: A bank employee wants to improve his/her presentations on what his/her bank offers to potential clients. It is a great general idea but doesn’t give much more information, so let’s make it go through our SMART goal filter. To make it more specific we need to know what needs improving right now. Is it the powerpoint slideshow? Is it the environment where the presentation takes place? After analyzing we know this person has a fear of public speaking and would like to improve that, as all other areas of the presentation are good. So, we have a part of our goal now - overcoming the fear of public speaking. If we want to make this goal measurable, we have to create smaller goals or something to evaluate progress. One of the steps can be finishing a Public Speaking Course like the one we have at Ness Coaching, or participating in an online workshop. Is this goal achievable? Let’s say that right now, this person is working 12h shifts due to lack of staff (going a bit extreme here, right?) and will not have time for self-improvement for the next 6 weeks. We know now, that partaking in a course is not achieavable at the moment, but will be achievable in 6 weeks time, so let’s take that into account and continue on to see how to make this goal relevant. Luckily, in this case, the goal is already relevant - upon overcoming the fear of public speaking and improving the quality of the bank presentation, the sales will go up and the comission earned goes up. Earning more comission is very relevant to the job. And to make a realistic timeline, we can put a time-frame of 3-6 months so the employee would have enough time to finish a course, do several of the online workshops or whatever else we decided were going to be measurable steps for this goal. So how does the goal look like here in the end?
''My goal is to overcome my fear of public speaking by completing a Public Speaking Course and attending four online workshops, starting in six weeks and reaching my goal within 4 months of starting. This will improve my presentation quality and drive my sales and comission up which will help my career advancement in the future’
EXAMPLE 2: An individual wishes to speak Spanish. This is a huge goal so we need to be a bit more specific. SMART goal setting to the rescue. To make the goal more specific we determine that the individual wishes to be able to be conversational in Spanish. According to the International Framework of Languages, that would be somewhere at B1 level. We have just made the goal very specific - the individual wishes to be at a level B1 which is also measurable, as there are numerous courses to sign up for at a local language school. Making more measurable milestones, we will want the individual to climb the language ladder, so first be at level A1, then A2, then B1. We do have to question ourselves is this possible? If this person has no free time to study (which will be necessary), and no financial freedom to invest in these courses, then this goal is not achievable, at least not at this time. Let’s say the person we are using for this example, has the time, has some savings and therefore this goal is achievable. How is this goal relevant? Well, it turns out this person has future plans of potentially moving to Spain so therefore it is relevant and will be a good asset for the future. It is always a good idea to invest in your future. The only thing we need to do is make the goals time-specific now. In this case, we will look at the steps we assigned which were the courses in a local language school. We found out it takes around 10 weeks for the A1 and A2 courses and 20 weeks for the B1 course. That is 40 weeks. We also know this individual has a two-week trip scheduled in Thailand so we need to allocate time for that as well, and also one wedding in Hawaii (this person really has a good life, right?) which will take another week. To sum it up, that’s 43 weeks so we can realistically say 10 to 11 months is a good timeline. If this was you, you can also prolong it, but keep in mind the longer you make it, the more room you have to lose motivation to push through. How is this goal going to look like written down?
''My goal is to reach B1 level in Spanish by completing A1, A2 and then B1 courses at my local language school, within the next 10 months, as I want to be conversational for a potential move to Spain one day''
Monitoring and Celebrating Success.
It is crucial to not forget to regularly monitor progress towards your SMART goal, and to make necessary adjustments. Celebrate achievements and milestones, no matter how small, to acknowledge progress and maintain motivation. Reflect on lessons learned from both successes and setbacks, identifying areas for improvement and growth. Please note that making regular adjustments does not mean you can keep changing your timeline and prolonging the finishing of the goal if there is no concrete reasona s to why that happened. If you have to prolong your goal for a month because the course you wanted to finish was cancelled due to lack of signed up participants, that is external circumstance beyond your control. If you prolong your goal for a month because you were too lazy to attend the earlier course, this is a big no-no.
Be honest with yourself - you do want to succeed and you do want to get to that goal, so avoid procrastination and be realistic to keep motivation up and reach the success you deserve.
“Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them.”
All in all, the SMART goals framework offers a structured and effective approach to goal-setting, enabling you to clarify your objectives, track progress, and achieve success. Treat it well and you will have great benefits and rewards. Your self-confidence will shine and once you tackle your first SMART goal, you won’t be able to get enough of it later on as well. By applying the principles of Specificity, Measurability, Achievability, Relevance, and Time-boundness, you can set yourself up for personal and professional growth.
Are you ready to crack the code of SMART goals and embark on a transformative journey towards success?
Start implementing SMART goals today and watch as your aspirations unfold into reality. At Ness Coaching, SMART goals are an integral part of all Coaching Programs, like The Game Changer: Unlocking Your Dream Career, It's All About Balance: Mastering the Art of Work-Life Balance, Talk the Talk: Impressing With Your Words and Presence and Lead by Example: The Ultimate Leadership Coaching Program!
Remember, you have the power to set powerful goals, aspire to your dreams and have success in your career! Start by successfully planning, evaluating and setting SMART goals. Embrace change, explore new opportunities, and find the path that truly brings you fulfillment and helps you soar to new professional heights. Ness Coaching is here for you with tailored one-on-one Coaching Programs that will guide you every step of the way! Your Discovery Session is free of charge! Book a FREE Discovery Session and see how with one click your can start creating the life you dreamed of!