Make Sure You're Making SMART Goals
In a world obsessed with objectives and obstacles, setting goals for oneself is a common occurrence. However, if you find that you aren’t achieving targets that you’ve set there might be a problem. The goals that you’ve set for yourself may be unattainable for you now because mostly we learn that we should set certain targets but it’s never mentioned how one should do so exactly.
Evaluating your situation might make you see what you what at the end of the road: a dream house, a degree, a great job, finishing a marathon. However, to achieve the end target you need to jump over certain hurdles which can be done if you make SMART goals.
1. Specific Goals
Having ambiguous goals can slow down your progress more than you think. Hence being specific really matters. Firstly, you need to divide your goals into long term and short term. Your long term goal may just be ‘finish writing a novel in a year’ but the more specific you are about your short term goals, the easier you’ll find achieving long-term targets.
For example, a short-term goal for finishing a novel could be coming up with the character’s name and looks on the first day of writing. Remember, penning down your goals can help make them more specific and give focus to your targets.
2. Measurable Goals
In order to tick off boxes, you need to keep in mind a way to actually measure your progress. If you don’t have an objective way to do this, it can make it hard to know whether you are actually closer to your end goal or not, for example, if your goal is to get promoted in a sales job you can use your sales to track you rise.
3. Attainable Goals
Even though this part is utterly subjective on how you perceive goals, it is an important one. It’s necessary to set goals which are achievable so as not to create a feeling of helplessness when you don’t get them. The best way to achieve really high goals is to break them down and take it step by step. Remember, in order to get to the top, you have to focus on rungs of the ladder too thus you should draw your attention towards any skills needed to accomplish those goals.
4. Realistic Goals
It’s vital to have goals which you can the skills or ability to actually complete the targets. It’s, therefore, important to evaluate your situation, positives, skills, etc needed. Evaluation can show you whether or not the targets you have set can actually be achieved with what tools you have to work with.
5. Timely Goals
Procrastination is an obstacle you will most likely come across. To deal with this you need to make sure all your goals have deadlines. Without that you may put off until even easily attainable goals are not achieved. This may leave you with a sense of hopelessness. A sense of urgency can help a great deal.
Now that you have a basic idea on how to achieve your targets, you should write down your list of aims and get to it! A focused person can make a lot of difference! Good luck!
