How to Set Better Smart Goals

If you’re not making progress towards your goals as fast as you’d like, or if you feel like you’ve hit a plateau, then this is for you because today I’m talking about how to set better goals to get you moving forward faster, and no, I’m not just talking about SMART goals.

Click the image below to watch my latest video on how to set better goals.

Or if video’s not your thing, keep reading below.

Now, I’m not necessarily against SMART goals, but I don’t think it’s as magical of a goal-setting method as people sometimes make it out to be. First of all, have you ever noticed that every time someone tells you what the letters stand for, it’s always slightly different? That makes it difficult to remember.

And within the SMART method, there’s a few important things missing. Things that have been shown through research are important for actually achieving the goals you set.

So what I want to do is take the SMART method and just wipe it out of our brains. We’re going to keep the important components of it and add in the extras and then we’re going to simplify it into just 4 steps you need to set goals you’ll actually achieve.

Step 1: Make sure you’ll be able to know when the goal is achieved.

So this is where you’ll want to make sure your goal is specific, measurable, and has a time frame to it.

Step #2 is that you need to have the ability to achieve the goal.

And this is not where you should let your insecurities come in and say that you can’t achieve it, but realistically look at whether the goal can be achieved based on the amount of time you have to achieve it, your resources, and your skills (whether you already have the skills or need to learn new skills to achieve it).

So if your goal passes this test, there’s a few additional things you can do to make sure you’ll actually follow-through and be able to achieve this goal.

The first is that you’ll want to break your big goal into smaller, actionable steps.

You’ll also want to think about any obstacles that could come up during the process so you can make a plan for how you’ll overcome those.

This is also where you’ll want to add in some accountability. Some people are good with internal accountability, but if you know that you’re someone that needs external accountability, take some time in this step to think about who or what will be able to hold you accountable.

Step #3: Motivation 

You need to be motivated to achieve your goal. Now, I know this sounds obvious, but as entrepreneurs, there are so many people out there telling us what we “should” be doing that it’s easy to adopt those goals as our own without thinking about if that’s what we really want. I know I’ve definitely made that mistake before.

So in this step you’re going to think about what your Why is. Why is achieving this goal important to you? What impact will it have in your life and business when you achieve it? Connecting to why it’s important to you will increase your motivation to work on and achieve the goal. 

Another thing you want to do here is to make sure the wording of your goal is in positive language. So what I mean is that you want to make sure your goal is about something you want, rather than something you don’t want. 

Here’s an example: If your goal is to stop eating junk food, then eating junk food is something you don’t want. Research has shown that you’re more likely to achieve a goal if you’re working toward what you do want, rather than what you don’t want. So you could rephrase that goal to say: I will eat a healthy dinner 3 nights a week for the next 6 weeks. Or: I will eat a piece of fruit as a snack when I get hungry in the afternoon. 

Another important motivating factor is that your goal should be a bit challenging - it should stretch you a bit because if it’s too easy to achieve it gets boring really fast. It’s more motivating to know that you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment when you achieve the goal.

And speaking of accomplishment, you should set up a reward or celebration for when you achieve the goal and maybe even some mini rewards for when you accomplish the smaller steps along the way to keep your motivation up. 

Step #4: Set up a system to stay on track.

So the first thing you can do is to set up reminders for yourself. You can put up post-its, or put notification reminders on your phone. In the past, I’ve even changed passwords to my goals so that I think about it every time I enter my password. You can get creative here. 

And in addition to setting up reminders, you’ll also want to track and evaluate your progress. This will be easier to do if you broke up your goal in step #2 to make it more actionable because then you can track your progress as you complete those mini tasks along the way. And I don’t think I said this before, but in addition to setting a due date for your overall goal, it’s good to set due dates for your mini steps also because that will help you to track whether you’re getting behind or if you’re on schedule.

I’ve got more content coming up to help you achieve your goals and build a flourishing life and business, so if you want to make sure you don’t miss out, enter your name and email below to sign up for my weekly emails.