You have probably come across many articles, books, and audios that stress the importance of setting goals. Hopefully, you have taken the time to sit down and write out goals for yourself. But are you writing SMART goals?

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

Specific Goal

SPECIFIC goals are written out clearly and have a set time frame. When you write out your goals, state what you want, and give it a deadline. A simple goal of “earning money by working from home” becomes much more motivational if you phrase it as “earning $500 per month on a regular basis within sixty days”. Once you know what your plan is, it will be easier to achieve it.

Measurable Goal

It is important to have MEASURABLE Goals, as they will help you track your progress. If a goal is not measurable, it will be very hard to define when you have actually achieved it. In the example above, by defining how much income you want to earn and giving it a time frame, you will know instantly when those sixty days are over if you have achieved the goal.

Attainable Goal

An ATTAINABLE Goal is a goal you know you can achieve. Don’t be fooled by the word “attainable”. It can still be a challenging goal and require effort to achieve it, but it does need to be something you can do. For instance, if your goal is to learn to build websites and you have absolutely no experience, your goal shouldn’t be to build a huge, portal website in a week. An attainable goal would be giving yourself a month to learn the software and build a small, but functioning website. Otherwise you will be putting pressure on yourself. If you are constantly setting unattainable goals, you may end up doubting yourself and become so afraid of failure that you start procrastinating on easy tasks.

Realistic Goal

While it is great to shoot for the stars when you are setting your goals, they also need to be REALISTIC Goals. Using the first example, the goal wasn’t to earn $500 within a week. Instead, the goal was to earn $500 per month within sixty days. If you are new to working from home, it may take some time for your business to be profitable. Instead of setting one huge goal, break the goal down into manageable “mini-goals”.

Timely Goal

You may have noticed that the example goals were TIMELY, or time related. There is an old saying that “a goal without a deadline is just a wish”. Having a defined time line will keep you motivated. If you have an open-ended goal, it will be easier to procrastinate, and therefore, harder to accomplish. However, knowing you need to accomplish something in a set period of time will spur you into action.

Your Next Step

Contact us to discuss how we can help you to

• Choose and set the right business goals
• Plan your business initiatives that lift the bottom line
• Learn how to reboot your business for greater success
• Learn how to become a Peak Performer and
• Get more tips for your Personal Development Journey.

Why don’t you take our Extraordinary Goal Setting Course, where we will join you on a new journey to become the always achieving superstar, who will be the envy of everyone else.

As a bonus we would like you to take action and download our free Action Plan Workbook for achieving a successful Work-Life Balance. It’s free and gives you the competitive advantage over others who seem to struggle each and every day by being busy and not achieving, by working long hours and missing out on life. With the right goals and action plan, you will become that superstar! Your journey starts with this action plan.