What is a SMART Goal?

Goals are part of every aspect of business/life and provide a sense of direction, motivation, clear focus and clarify importance. By setting goals for yourself, you are providing yourself with a target to aim for. A SMART goal is used to help guide goal setting. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Therefore, a SMART goal incorporates all of these criteria to help focus your efforts and increase the chances of achieving that goal.

So what does it stand for?

S specific

Be specific! There’s no use in setting a generic goal because it won’t suit you personally, however if you adapt the goal to apply to what you need, then it will be much more valuable to you. Of course you want to prosper in your field of work, but isn’t everyone in the office thinking the same? 

M measureable

Is it quantifiable? For instance going back to the example objective of selling more, you can measure this by the amount of units sold. Being a measurable goal allows you to identify when exactly it has been reached, i.e. what you desire as the end result.

A achievable

The point of a target is to challenge and motivate yourself to complete a piece of work, if you was to set your target too high it can cause stress and so decreasing the chance of your target actually being within reach. Likewise if a target was too easy will inhibit you from pushing yourself and doing more. Setting yourself a reasonable target is crucial!

R realistic

‘I’m going to own a multimillion pound enterprise by the end of the month’ Might be a tad too ambitious, don’t get me wrong ambition is a leading trait, but maybe start off with something more realistic, remember all successful business people don’t just become successful overnight.

T time bound

Deadlines. Not something we like, but something most of us need. Especially if you’re someone like me, who tends to procrastinate. For example, if you’re sat at your desk knowing you have work to do, it’s easy to get lost in the world of the internet looking at cute animal photos or funny videos, but what if you were to say ‘Right, by 2 o’clock I want to have completed…’ then you’ve just motivated yourself to complete a job by an allotted time.

Deadlines. Not something we like, but something most of us need. Especially if you’re someone like me, who tends to procrastinate. For example, if you’re sat at your desk knowing you have work to do, it’s easy to get lost in the world of the internet looking at cute animal photos or funny videos, but what if you were to say ‘Right, by 2 o’clock I want to have completed…’ then you’ve just motivated yourself to complete a job by an allotted time.

Reference- https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/smart-goal/