Setting SMART goals means you can clarify your ideas, focus your efforts, use your time and resources productively, and increase your chances of achieving what you want in life.
By having no goals set at the start of the year it’s incredibly difficult to know which way your life will go.
You started being pushed and pulled around in lots of different directions, but probably not in the direction you really want to go. It’s hard to find clarity if you don’t know what it is you want to achieve.
In order to stop this, you need to set some clear goals.
By setting goals, it forces you to create a plan on how you are going to achieve those particular goals. And the result of having a clear plan means you will know exactly what it is you need to do every day to achieve that goal.
How Creating Goals Helps You Become Successful
You will begin to live life on your own terms and this will dictate your daily actions.
By having clear goals and an actionable plan you are setting yourself up to be successful.
Writing down your goals means you are 42% more likely to achieve them.
It’s a small thing but it significantly improves your chances of success.
In this post, we will look at 5 SMART goals examples you can use for this year so you can make it your most successful year ever.
First, let’s take a look at how setting goals creates success and what the concept SMART goals actually means.
What are SMART Goals?
SMART goals are a term that was first outlined by George T. Doran, however, it was Peter Drucker that brought the concept into mainstream thinking. It is now one of the most common and widely used goal setting techniques (and with good reason).
SMART is a cleverly constructed acronym that demonstrates a way of writing down your SMART goals. The SMART formula stands for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound
By using this formula to set your goals it means you can get extremely specific which significantly increases your chances of success.
To demonstrate the difference let’s take a look at two goals:
- I am going to start running more
- I am going to run 3 times per week for the next 6 months
Hopefully, it’s obvious what goal is the better one to have but just to be sure it’s the second one. It gives a clear outline of the goal, how you are going to achieve it, and over what time period.
It is much more specific than just saying ‘I am going to start running more’ which is extremely vague and doesn’t give you any actionable steps on how you will achieve that SMART goal.
5 Amazing SMART Goals to Help You Thrive this Year
Here we will look at 5 SMART goals examples that you can use for the upcoming year.
The purpose of the examples is to give you some ideas of SMART goals that you can put in place.
They can be copied exactly, or you can tweak each component to better suit yourself. Ultimately, the goal is your choice and has to be something you want to do.
Every goal will follow the SMART formula, which each part of the formula clearly outlined.
1. Read 2 books a month over the next 12 months
Reading more books is an extremely common personal development goal. However, just saying you will read more books isn’t specific enough.
In our busy lives, it can often be very difficult to find the time to read. Some of the most successful people in the world read lots of books so it’s definitely something we should all do more of.
With this SMART goal, you are being really specific about how much more you want to read.
S – The goal is to read more
M – 2 books per month
A – A challenge, but doable
R – Relevant if wanting to expand your knowledge
T – 12 months
2. Meditate for 10 mins a day for a month
Meditating has lots of great benefits, it can help us to improve our ability to focus and reduce anxiety and stress, along with many other benefits.
Starting something new like meditating can be difficult, that’s why this SMART goal is very specific in keeping it up for a short amount of time each day.
It’s much easier to follow through with something if it’s achievable, a key component of the SMART acronym. 30 days should also give you enough time to form the habit and decide if it’s something you want to stick to.
S – The goal is to meditate
M – 10 mins per day
A – A challenge, but achievable
R – Relevant if wanting to improve focus
T – 1 month
3. Meal Prep Your Breakfast & Lunch (Mon-Fri) Every Week
Planning your meals throughout the working week allows you to free up your time to do other things.
It’s an incredibly powerful productivity technique. Instead of spending anywhere between 5 mins and 1 hour every day preparing breakfast and lunch, you bulk cook all your meals for the week.
This SMART goal is very specific about which meals and what days of the week you intend to meal plan. A much better way of writing down the goal than just ‘I want to meal prep more’.
An added benefit is that you will probably eat healthilier as you have had the time to plan out exactly what you want to eat, instead of just grabbing something on the go.
S – The goal is to meal prep
M – Breakfast & Lunch (Mon-Fri)
A – Challenging, but achievable
R – Relevant if you want to be more productive
T – 2 months
4. Go to two networking events every month for 3 months.
Networking is a great way to meet like-minded people and it can help take your career or business to the next level.
Nowadays, networking can involve going to physical events, or via online events.
However, if we just say we want to ‘network more’, it’s not specific and you are not really being held accountable.
For this SMART goal, we are really specific about how often we will network.
S – Attend more networking events
M – 2 per month
A – Easily doable
R – Relevant if wanting to make new connections
T – 3 months
5. Review your goals twice a week for a year
As this post is all about SMART goals, it feels important to have a goal about our goals.
Setting goals is the easy part, taking the required action to achieve them is where it can get difficult.
One way of improving your chances of achieving your goals is to continually revert back to them, keep them front of mind as much as possible. It’s no use writing a goal down and not looking at it for a year. Chances are you probably won’t achieve that goal.
With this SMART goal, we are being specific about how often we will review our goals.
S – The goal is to review your goals
M – Twice a week
A – Difficult, but achievable
R – Relevant if wanting to improve chances of achieving your goal
T – All year
Hopefully, the 5 SMART goals examples above have given you some ideas of SMART goals you can set this year.
The smart goals above can be copied exactly how they are or you can adapt them as you like. For example, instead of meditating for 10 mins a day, you could change this to 5 mins a day. Ultimately, with any goal, it has to be something that you really want to achieve otherwise you will find it a struggle.
The key point of any goal is to make sure you always follow the SMART acronym as it will set you up for a much greater chance of success.
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Adam Jones
Adam writes for The Growth Reactor which is a blog that will help you upgrade your life at start-up speed. The Growth Reactor provides the latest actionable insights and tips on the most popular self-development trends to help you build the right habits to help you achieve all of your goals.
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