s-M-art Goals

(Good morning and welcome to the M of SMART goals.)

M stands for measurable, meaningful and motivational.

"If you can't measure it--you can't manage it."

In order to measure a goal you need to know if what you set out to accomplish is obtainable, as well as how far away the completion is. Otherwise, how will you know when the goal has been achieved?

One of the pitfalls of goal setting is making your goal too vague. For instance, your goal states 'I want to finish the damn book'. Sounds overwhelming doesn't it? When is the book considered finished? How will you see the changes that occur, the progress you make on a FTDB challenge?

Establish concrete criteria to measure your progress. How about something like... 'I will write X words a day (sense a theme here?) to complete a chapter each week to take to critique.' You can measure this easily by the words you write. This is a meaningful goal--you're working on your career. Motivational? Of course. When you measure your progress, it's easier to stay on track to reach your target completions. And, don't you feel good when you review your goal and see you wrote that weekly chapter? That excitement and exhilaration can and will carry you forward into the next week. And the one beyond that. 

(To infinity and beyond!--not to put too fine a point on it! Couldn't resist making a couple of movie references. Guess which movies.)

Before you know it, you've reached your major goal!

How cool is that?