Business is full of acronyms - from BEER (behaviour, effect, expectation, results) to TED (Tell, Explain, Describe) anyone who has ever been to a training seminar will have left with at least one of these words to help them remember the key message from the meeting.

Of all of them SMART may be both the cleverest and most useful of all and it has implications for our daily lives far beyond those of the business environment.

Almost all of us have at times started something we regret or at the very least failed to complete a task.  Whether it was an intention to lose weight, quit smoking or tidy the garage out, we have all failed to achieve something in our lives.  Generally these failures are small and of limited significance, but over time they can lead to guilt, loss of self-esteem and in extreme cases, burnout and depression. Sometimes the failure is truly beyond our control, but more often than not, the problem lies with the way the goals are first defined in our minds.  If we are clever about how we define our goals then we are more likely to succeed and less likely to end up in a destructive cycle of failures.  SMART goal setting is a very useful way to make things happen.

Essentially, SMART goals are:

• Simple
• Measureable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Timed

This is easy to remember but takes a little practice to get good at as most of the time we don't set goals this way. 

SIMPLE

Goals should be simple - try hard not to combine multiple goals together.  Instead, set lots of separate goals - for instance "I will clean the house today" could become "I will clean the kitchen, then see if I have time to do anything else..."

If goals are too complex, it becomes ddifficult to manage the next stage of goal-setting.

MEASUREABLE

Goals should have a "Definition of Done" - how will you know when the job is finished?  "I will lose weight" is an open-ended goal that is not really measureable - at what point will you have lost enough?  "I will try hard to lose 3Kg" is a much better goal as it has a clear end-point.  Vague goals like "tidy up" or "cut down on alcohol" are very easy to fail at as they have no definition of done and the end-point is flexible enough that it might as well not be there at all.   "Put the dishes away" or "I will drink no more than 10 standard drinks per week" are much better goals as they are easy to measure.

ACHIEVABLE

Achievability is critical.  Goals should be possible in our own context and time.  Any goal we set will inevitably be at the expense of another as we have only limited time available to do things and time spent on one goal cannot be allocated to another.  Time is not the only consideration of course - physical and financial limitations are also very important in whether goals can be achieved but time is absolute and the others are relative.  The question is whether the end result is worth the effort, money and time allocated to it, given all the other pressures on our resources.  "I will climb Mount Everest" may be achievable for a young fit person with plenty of time and money but not for a busy parent who has a mortgage to pay.  "I will lose 20Kg" might be achievable, but it is a most unwise target as it is very difficult.  Better to say "I will lose 3Kg and see how I feel" instead.

When considering achievablility, most people will also plan how they are going to reach the goal.  This is not essential for the goal to be SMART, but it is important that you know you can achieve every stage needed to get to your ultimate goal.  It may be more useful to break goals down into simpler units - "I will climb Everest" is NOT a SMART goal for instance, but "I will now make a list of all the things I need to be able to do so that I can climb Everest" is.

RELEVANT

Goals must be relevant.  In the previous example, climbing Everest is not a particularly important goal for most people - it has no relevance to their lives.  Quitting smoking, losing weight or clearing up a mess are more immediate issues for most people and will have more benefits.  That is not to say that the sense of achievement from climbing a mountain is unimportant, but if it is not what rocks your boat, don't make it your goal - choose something that is important to you instead.  Similarly, targets need to be sufficient to produce some effect.  "I will lose half a pound of weight" is not relevant as such a small weight loss is not going to have any effect.

TIMED

Goals need to have a time attached.  Without a time, a goal is too vague - when is it going to be started? when is it going to be finished?  when will the definition of done be tested? "I will tidy my desk" is an aspiration, not a goal.  "I will tidy my desk now" is a goal (but not SMART) as it has a time attached to it. 

When setting goals, then, ensure that wherever possible all five of the SMART criteria are met.  At the very least, ensure that your goals have a definition of done and that you can achieve that in a reasonable time frame.  This way you will succeed more often and feel better.  You will also be much more organised in your approach to life and will get more done in less time. 

Like all new skills, SMART goal setting is effortful to begin with but becomes easier with time and after a while becomes second nature, especially to those for whom planning is a preferred way of dealing with life.  Those who prefer to go with the flow as it were, will still beenfit from the discipline but may find it harder.

Credits:

Smart image:  David Viallareal Fernandez