Goals are great to have. Unless you are like me and constantly set bad goals.
OK, maybe not bad goals as much as unrealistic goals.
See I thought that you made a list of things you wanted to accomplish/goals and then you went after said goals.
It never occurred to me that I needed to not only have a plan but actually have SMART goals.
Now wait a minute, I didn't say my goals were dumb, I said just my goals weren't SMART goals.
So what is a SMART goal, I am glad you asked.
See without having a SMART goal, I really didn't know what my goal was or how I planned to achieve my goal. Now that I have learned about SMART goals, I try to break my goals down to this formula.
Is it going to work every time, NO nothing does.
But at least having a SMART goal, I also have a plan.
I can not tell you how many goals I wasn't able to achieve because
1) the goal was so unrealistic (I am going to work out every day)
2) I didn't have a defined (specific) goal.( I want to be healthier. What does that really mean? Lose weight, Eat Better, Sleep Better, Exercise more?) See where I am going.
3)the only way I viewed the goal as measurable was whether I was successful in meeting the undefined goal. (How do you measure something when you yourself aren't aware of what you want to accomplish?)
4) I had no time limits, which in my mind meant no action. Without having a timeline, I was able to push doing the not so fun work, to the back of my to-do list because I always had another deadline that needed to be met. ( Since there was no urgency to meet a deadline, then there is no action)
Now, at this point, you may be thinking this girl is CRAZY.
But seriously that is how my mind works with everything. My mind is always going and if I don't have things written down where I can focus on them, you can forget it.
Taking the exercise example from above, lets now turn that into a SMART goal.
S- I will exercise on a consistency basis. I will workout with weights at least 3/week and do cardio 2/week.
M- Lose weight, increase strength, decreased body fat percentage, improved cardio health
A- Begin working out on January 6 while wearing a heart rate monitor, pedometer, and weigh in monthly.
R-I am physically capable of obtaining these activities and already physically active.
T-Start date of January 6 continuing on through April 1, and then I will re-evaluate goals
See that wasn't that bad. It gets easier the more you write your goals out.
What goals are you wanting to achieve?
Michelle
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