We’re right smack in the middle of the year and you’re probably feeling the heat. Looking at the goals and resolutions you made at the beginning of he year and wondering what could have gone wrong. Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality. Do you feel as if you’re adrift in the world? You work hard, but don’t seem to get anywhere worthwhile? We’ve got some goals tips to help you. A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. SMART here stands for:
S – Specific (or Significant).
M – Measurable (or Meaningful).
A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).
R – Relevant (or Rewarding).
T – Time-bound (or Trackable).
6 Tips on How to Set SMART Goals and Achieve Them
- Be positive about each goal: Express your goals positively. “Execute this technique well” is a much better goal than “Don’t make this stupid mistake.” A positive mindset gives it a better approach.
- Be precise: Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you’ll know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.
- Set priorities: When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by having too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.
- Write goals down: Writing goals down helps you to always look back and check how much you’ve achieved, crystallizes them and gives them more force.
- Set realistic goals: It’s important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.
- Set performance goals, not outcome goals: You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control! If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals, and draw satisfaction from them.