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Yesterday, in part 1 of our Goal-setting for 2010, we sat down to define 5 goals for 2010. There may be a million things you want to accomplish in the year, but narrowing it down to the top 5 gives you a short list of prioritized things you want to achieve. Today, we are going to work through the SMART approach for activating our goals.
SMART Goals
How can you make sure that you’ll achieve your goals? They have to be SMART! In order for your goals to be SMART, you need to ensure that they are:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Acheivable
- Realistic
- Timely
Bring out the 5 goals that you defined yesterday, and let’s make certain that they are SMART.
Specific Goal…
How specific have you defined your goal? Get into the nitty gritty details. Define the who, what, where, why, and, when. What exactly will your goal accomplish? “I want to save the world” is not a good enough goal. “I want to save the world of hunger in 2010 because there are too many starving people” is a more specific goal.
Measurable Goal…
What sort of benchmarks can you give yourself along the way? How will you know that you’ve reached this goal? How will you measure the success? You may say, “I will accomplish my goal when each person in the world has 3 meals a day.” You may also break this down into benchmarks: “Part 1: African people will have 3 meals a day, Part 2: Asian people will have 3 meals a day, Part 3: European people will have 3 meals a day… and so on.” I like breaking it down because it gives you incremental measurements along the way. It’s also a good way of creating baby-steps. (This is something that I’ll go into a little more tomorrow.)
Achievable Goal…
Is achieving this goal realistic with effort and commitment? This is where you have to take a long hard look at your goal list and be honest with yourself. I think this is the hardest of the SMART goal strategies. Some goals are not easy to accomplish in one year, or with limited resources. This is a good question in helping you determine what is truly possible. Maybe it isn’t possible for me to solve world hunger in one year. Maybe I should take a step back and redefine my goal.
Relevant Goal…
Why is this goal significant? Why is an important part of your business? If your goal is to redesign your website, talk about how it is important to the branding of your company, and an important part of your marketing plan. Make certain that your goal is not just something that is fun to do, but that will also take your company to the next level.
Timely Goal…
When will this goal be achieved? How will you know that you have completed your goal? This is something that I feel is also good if broken down into baby-steps. You may want to break your goal into 10 part snippets with the last one being your due date. Give yourself a deadline because it’ll hold you accountable to ensure that it gets accomplished.
Free Download on Goal-Setting the SMART way for 2010…
Sooo… we have a quick-n-easy little template to help you in writing down your 2010 goals and writing the SMART Strategies. You can download it here:
Sage Wedding Pros – SMART Goal Planning Exercise
For other Sage Wedding Pros’ download, visit our collection of wedding industry downloads by clicking here.
by Michelle Loretta
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