Introduction
It’s that time of year again. Social media is flooded with challenges like 75 hard, people are drafting lists of all they want to accomplish, and you’re preparing to use the new year to become the best version of yourself. This is the year, you tell yourself. This is the year you’ll actually stick to it.
But now, almost two weeks in, it’s most likely that those big, new year, new me plans have gone out the window. It’s a cliche for a reason. Everyone sets these huge, daunting goals that require lifestyle changes, not just one year. Still, New Year resolutions, when done correctly, can improve both your quality of life and your mental well-being.
This is part one in a two-part series. In this blog, you’ll learn how to determine how to set up the most effective goals that you could realistically achieve. In the next post, you’ll learn how to go from broad goals to specific ones tailored to your needs.
Outline
- What are SMART goals
- How SMART goals apply to you
- Example of a SMART goal
SMART Goals
It is highly likely that you’ve heard of SMART goals before. If you haven’t or simply don’t remember the concept, it is an easy acronym that summarizes the goal-setting process. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. By using each letter to establish a baseline, you will be able to start off on your journey on the right foot.
Specific
This letter is both the most general and most specific of all the other steps. While that may sound contradictory, it is because when determining the specifics of your goal, you must analyze every angle at which your journey could be perceived. You must ask yourself what exactly you are trying to accomplish and how you will know when you’ve achieved this goal. This means establishing a set deadline and a path on how to get there. Think of this section as a mission statement in which you develop a general idea of how you will progress toward the end result.
Although it may be difficult to pinpoint the specific details before you start, the 5 W questions can help.
Who: Who will be helping you towards your goal? Will you be working alone, with family/friends, or with a new community of people? Will there be people who try to prevent you from achieving your goal? Your social circle can heavily determine to what extent you achieve your dreams.
When: When do you plan to work towards the goal? This could mean establishing a time frame, for example, saying you want to achieve your goal by the end of the year. It could also be more specific, referring to the days of the week or the hours of the days you plan to work towards it.
Where: Where are you going to be when working towards your goal? It can be beneficial to establish a setting specific to your goal to help train yourself to get into the mindset of progress when in it. It will also be good to identify if you’ll need to go to a special location, and that way, you can work out how it will fit into your schedule.
What: What exactly are you trying to achieve? Your goal shouldn’t be so vague and open-ended that you’re unable to pinpoint how you’ll know when you’ve accomplished the goal. The end result should be something tangible that you could physically see or feel, whether that means physically, mentally, socially, et cetera.
Why: Why do you want to do it? This is arguably the most important question to answer. In a time like this, it is especially easy to feel compelled to improve after watching people hit reading, fitness, studying, work, life, or any other goal. Although these goals and the people who achieve them may seem aesthetic on social media, they are not the same person as you. Everyone has different individual needs, and the desire to pursue a goal should come from within yourself rather than completely rely on external factors. External influences may help propel you, but if you have no genuine interest in the journey to get the result you want, then the goal will likely not stick.
Measurable
This section expands more in-depth to the “What” question asked earlier. Rather than only imagine the end result and how you want your life to look like, you must focus on the practical steps to get to the end. This means your journey can’t only be filled with imagination and dreaming. There must be a way for you to measure your progress and define the end of your journey. This doesn’t mean to only focus on numbers but rather use anything as a marker for progress. Depending on your goal, this could vary. Some examples could include the amount of time you put into the goal, progress pictures, or a unit toward a final result (Ex: if you’re writing a novel, perhaps a word or page count would be a good unit to track). However, although the measurements will help you keep track, you shouldn’t put too much emphasis on them. If you overshoot or undershoot some days, it doesn’t mean you need to throw in the towel. These units are divided up over a long period of time. You don’t have to hit these mini goals every day, as long as you’re relatively consistent and still working towards the result you want.
Achievable
Is it realistic for you to be able to achieve this goal, or is it too unrealistic? It is important to acknowledge your current limitations, the extent to which you can break your limits, and how to scale down goals to better fit your individual needs. Nobody has the same twenty-four hours in the day, and it is up to you to determine the best use of your limited time and resources.
Relevant
Is this goal something you truly desire and would make your life better, or is it a byproduct of external pressures? If you don’t see a benefit to achieving your goal other than the fact that other people are doing it, or are encouraging you to do it, then it may not be the best goal to work towards. It is also important to consider that many long-term goals require lifestyle changes, which would require you to sacrifice elements of your current life to accommodate. What are you willing to give up to achieve the result you want? In the end, that decision must be made by you, not by any external factors.
Timely
What time frame are you expecting to achieve this goal by? This shouldn’t be too vague that it gives you too much wiggle room so you could slack off. However, it shouldn’t be so strict that if you don’t make it by then, you quit and restart all your progress. If you didn’t get to the point you wanted but still made progress and know you want to achieve the result, simply move the deadline back, and keep working towards the goal. Self-improvement is a lifelong game, not just a monthly one. It simply helps to have deadlines to ensure you stay on track, but they aren’t the end all be all.
SMART Goal Example
S: My goal is to study more in the new year. To do this, I’ll enlist the help of my teachers, who can help me learn how to better prepare for their individual classes. I am aiming to achieve a minimum of 100 hours by the end of the school year. I will do this at the desk in my bedroom or in classrooms with my teachers, and I will do this in the evenings after school. I am doing this to improve my grades since I struggled in the fall semester and want to balance out my GPA.
M: I will keep track of my goals by tracking the study techniques I use, the hours I spend, and the grades that result from studying. This way, I can measure whether the time I spend is effective in achieving the grade I desire.
A: This is achievable because I have time after school to focus on homework and have access to resources such as online school resources or my teachers’ emails to contact them after school hours for help.
R: This is realistic because in the fall semester, I didn’t study much; however, if I focus on the course content and study material, I should be able to understand it and improve my grade.
T: This will be done every day until the end of the school year. I will allow myself one day of rest each week so that I don’t burn out. Each day I will aim for 30 minutes minimum of dedicated studying to one subject.
As seen above, I’ve evaluated how I will achieve my goal and examined what resources I have available to help me with this goal. This template is applicable to every goal and will help you stay on track as time passes on.
Conclusion
It is important to analyze the realistic nature of your goal, whether it is something that will truly benefit you that you also feel motivated to start, and how to go about achieving it. Now that you know where to start, we’ll discuss how to maintain your progress in the next blog post.