#8 - S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Today we’re going to learn about a specific goal setting strategy that will help you be more successful in reaching your primary and lag goals. Different strategies for goal setting help different athletes so we’re going to review several—SMART is just one strategy that’s been effective for many people. The word SMART is an acronym which stands for “Specific,” “Measurable,” “Attainable,” “Realistic,” and “Time-bound.” The words in this acronym are to help you set a goal and word it in a way that will help you follow through.
Specific
It is dangerous to set goals that don’t have specifics in them because it’s so easy to justify failure. If my goal is “read more” and I end up reading two books during a whole year technically I met the goal (assuming I read one or fewer the previous year) but it’s still a poor performance. Not only is it difficult to measure success, it’s also difficult to stay on track during the year—how much do I need to read this month or this week to reach my goal? “More” is hard to quantify. If instead I said, “my goal is to read 12 books this year,” it is very easy to see if I am on track.
Measurable
Your goals should also be measurable. Twelve books is very easy to measure. So is “Making it to state in track”—you either did it or not. What if instead I said, “become a better runner?” If I improve by only one second, did I succeed? The problem with non-measurable goals is not only that it’d hard to know if you succeeded, it’s also hard to stay on track. Similar to the specific aspect above, if you don’t know what you have to do, how do you go about doing it? Which goal would make it easier to succeed: a) be a better swimmer or b) practice 2 hours per day to become a better swimmer? Some goals may be difficult to find a way to measure but keep in mind there are lots of possibilities: finishing places, finishing time, deadlines, time per day, number of items, shooting percentages, consistency, results, etc.
Attainable/Realistic
Unlike some of the other goal setting strategies we will discuss, SMART goals require a goal that is attainable or realistic. For some people, it’s important to set a goal that isn’t so ambitious it’s daunting. If you feel like a huge goal will just make you lose motivation or fail to even start, then make sure that your goal is something that is attainable. For example, “breaking the world-record marathon” could be a terrible goal if it’s so wildly unrealistic that you plan to go running and then say, “what’s the point, I’m not going to reach the goal anyways.” As you will see tomorrow, some people thrive on goals that are so massive they’re daunting. This is a personal preference, but you should experiment with these different strategies to find out what you respond to best.
Time-bound
If you’re like me, you constantly battle procrastination—if I set a goal without a deadline it might still be on the “To Do List” when I get my first wheelchair! It’s important to incorporate a deadline into the goal so that you can come up with a game plan, take action, and see if you achieved it. This year, this season, this month, this summer, by the time I’m __years old, these are all examples of including a deadline in your goal.
Take a couple minutes to put your goals for this season in writing using the SMART goal format. Tomorrow we will discuss an alternative approach to goal setting.
I will SPECIFICALLY do ________________
I will MEASURE it by __________________
It is REALISTICALLY ATTAINABLE? Yes.
I will get it done in this TIME frame ____________
