The SMART way of setting your goals

How you set them dictates if you achieve them.

Like most people I also love to make a list of my goals. And like most people I also love to cross them off as each one gets completed. But the thing with goals is, they can be very elusive. The focus is all on how to reach them. On how to be disciplined and have “x” number of habits to get to the finish line. But we often forget that how you create goals and why you create them fundamentally dictates if you end up achieving them.

I am thoroughly a goal oriented person. I thrive on setting short term and long term goals. Weekly projects broken down into smaller daily tasks. And tasks allocated a fixed number of hours, keeping in mind the usual disturbances that come with working from home and being a mother. While this time management is what eventually helps in achieving the intended targets, I believe the real art lies in the creation of these goals.

Creating goals doesn’t seem like a difficult thing to do. We all have a basic idea of what we want to accomplish, right? For this articles purposes, we’ll suppose I want to get fitter. But what does this goal objectively mean to me? Does fitter mean losing weight or gaining muscle or building stamina or becoming flexible? And when do I want to reach this ‘fitter’ state? 1 month? 1 year? Is this goal even realistic and relevant given my current physical state, other ambitions, lifestyle and habits?

Coming up with what we would like to achieve is great, but we must realize we don’t have an infinite set of energy, time and resources. Because simply imagining a goal unfortunately does not translate into reaching it, we need self-discipline and a SMART approach. Setting goals the SMART way means refining what we precisely want and focusing on how exactly we plan to get it. For years, this strategy has helped me save on time and effort. Call it a productivity hack, a mind tool or a functional habit; it has served me well and in a few minutes you will see how it can work for you too.

SMART is an acronym; each letter comprises of the characteristics your goal setting should have so it is more likely to succeed.

Specific — Your goal needs to be established with specific details. When I wanted to become physically fitter…

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