By Engr. Carlos V. Cornejo
Do you have a goal this year that you have not fulfilled and must have concluded “I’m lousy at fulfilling goals, I have given up making them”? That goal might be to exercise more, spend more time with your family, take up a new hobby, save more money or read more books. Michael Hyatt, author of this best-selling book, “Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals” says we fail to achieve our yearly goals because we are not defining it more clearly. We might be using the famous SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time Bound) acronym in defining goals but the author says this is not enough. He comes up with his own acronym SMARTER which defines goals more clearly and has a much better chance of getting them achieved. SMARTER means Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Risky, Time-Keyed and Triggered, Exciting.
Specific
Compare “I want to make more money” to “I want to make $10,454 this month.” The specificity of the later goal makes it exciting and sticky, which means you’re likely to recall it during the day and make more decisions that move you closer to your goal. Adding specificity to your goal reduces indecision. If your goal is to “Read more,” you may constantly wonder, “What should I be reading?” But if make your goal, “Read more biographies of great leaders,” you know exactly where to direct your focus.
Measurable
Although your goal is more specific this time such as, “Read more biographies of great leaders,” but when asked, “What percentage have you completed with your goal?”, you can’t provide a clear answer because it still is not more specific. But if change your goal to, “Read one biography of a great leader each month,” you could say, “I’m about 60% complete with my reading goal this month.”
When working on a habit goal on the other hand, measure your current streak or success rate instead of percent complete. If you want to run 15 minutes every weekday morning, tally your runs on a calendar so you can report that you have a 10-day streak, or that you’ve run 10 of the last 15 days and have a 67% success rate (which might be 17% better than last month).
When you know your percent complete, current streak, or success rates, you can take pride in your progress and stay motivated.
Actionable
Does your goal invoke a concrete action image? If you’re a freelance graphic designer and your goal is “Make $12,252 a month,” it’s difficult to see what you need to do to hit that goal. Double your clients? Sell more of an existing course? Make a new graphic design course? Choose from among the three choices and focus on it. If that choice does not work, try the other choices left. Let’s say after some thought, you might make your goal: “Launch a new graphic design” put a deadline and “Launch it by June 30th.”
Risky
Most goal-setting systems suggest setting reasonable goals. But if a goal doesn’t invoke a bit of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, you’re not maximizing your potential. In a meta-study of 400 goal-setting experiments, researchers found that people who set lofty goals had a two-and-a-half-fold increase in performance over people who set easy goals.
Whatever your goal, try stretching it. Instead of “Read one biography a month,” can you, “Read two biographies a month?” When you stretch your goal, you’re bound to encounter a limiting belief. You might think, “I can’t do two books a month. I’m a slow reader.” Replace that limiting belief with a liberating truth by adding the word “yet” to the end of your limiting belief. For example, “I’m a slow reader,” becomes, “I’m not a fast reader yet.” Replacing limiting beliefs with liberating truths will knock down internal obstacles, and you can achieve more than you initially thought.
Time-Keyed and Triggered
When you set a specific time to complete your goal, like “Read two biographies of great leaders each month,” you create a sense of urgency, which dramatically increases the odds of you completing your goal. After establishing a goal deadline, establish a reliable trigger (a specific time or existing habit) to ensure you take consistent action towards your goals. For example, “I will read two biographies of great leaders each month BY reading every night at 9 PM.”
Exciting
When you stop making progress and feel like quitting, it’s important to remember why you were excited about your goal in the first place. Therefore, before starting your goal, write down at least two meaningful reasons why you’re excited and motivated to accomplish that goal (Example: “I’m reading leadership books to learn inspiring stories, which I can use to get through tough times and inspire others.”)
Keep the reasons you’re excited to complete your goal in a note on your phone so you can quickly read them when your motivation dips.
Relevant
If your wife had just given birth or you have a big project at work, is it time to make a goal to stretch your marathon run from 5 kilometers to 10 kilometers? Some goals might have to wait because there are more important things you need to attend to with your family or at the workplace. It does not mean giving up but just postponing it and going back to it once your work load becomes less demanding.
