Create SMART Goals to Achieve Your Dreams

What is the first thing you should do when you want to achieve something? The first thing you should do is to set a clear and specific goal. The importance of setting a goal is to get you focused and motivated to achieve your objective by giving you a target to aim for. Goals can be used to gauge your efforts in accomplishing your objective - it gives you an idea on how far you are from reaching your target.

People who have clear and specific goals are more likely to be successful in life than those who don't. Why? Because those successful people are highly focused and dedicated in making their dreams come true. They know exactly what they want to achieve. They have a clear target that they want to hit. That's why they set clearly defined goals to work on to get what they desire.

You can be successful too. Set goals in your life so that you have something to strive for; thus, you are motivated to take action. Having clearly defined goals also help you stay focused in accomplishing your objectives because you have something to look forward to.

Do set a goal first before doing any kind of activity; keep doing this until goal setting becomes a habit. However, in order for your goals to be effective, they should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely (SMART).

SPECIFIC: It's important that your goal be specific. Give a clear definition of what you really want to achieve. By having a clearly defined goal, it will be easier for you to think of detailed ideas on how and what steps you should take in order for you to achieve your goal; hence, making the process of achieving your goal faster. Furthermore, knowing exactly what you can achieve and having a clear picture of it in your head will make you more committed to accomplishing that goal.

MEASURABLE: You should be able to determine if you're going to reach your target or not. You should have a way to gauge your progress in reaching your goal. With measurable goals, you can do that. You will be able tell how close (or how far) you are from achieving your goal. Measurable goals generally answer "how" questions like "How much?", "How long?", etcetera.

ACHIEVABLE: Set an achievable and reasonable goal. Don't set goals that are extremely hard to accomplish that no matter what you do, you'll probably never be able to achieve them. It's not advisable to set goals that are quite easy to accomplish either. If you've achieved a goal effortlessly, then it isn't much of an accomplishment. Instead, strive for something that you can achieve that will help you grow, by working for it.

REALISTIC: Basically, a realistic goal means that it is "do-able" - it can be done. To find out if your goal is realistic, assess yourself. Do have everything that is needed to accomplish your goal? If you have the necessary skills, resources (like time, money, etcetera), and are truly committed to achieving the goal, then, you can say that the goal is realistic.

TIMELY: Goals ought to have a deadline as to when they should be accomplished so you'll have a sense of urgency to take action immediately. Having a sense of urgency will also drive you to work harder to achieve your goals. A time-framed goal can help you track your progress. Remember that the time frame you put should also be measurable, achievable, reasonable, and realistic.

Now that you know what the acronym SMART stands for, let's see an example of a generic goal and a SMART goal:

Generic goal: "I'm going to save money to buy a house someday."

SMART goal: "I'm going to save enough money to buy a brand new $5.5M house (4 bedrooms, 2 stories, 3 car garage) on Beverly Hills by the year 2017."

In the above examples, you can see the difference why it's much better to set a SMART goal rather than a general one.

The general goal is vague/unclear. You don't know exactly what you want to have. There's also no way to measure how close you are from reaching your goal. The word 'someday' is indefinite. In reality, 'someday' might never come. Additionally, the generic goal doesn't give you the sense of urgency to act now. Without it, you'll feel that you can start anytime because there's no deadline.

However, with the SMART goal example, you know exactly what you want because it's been clearly specified. You can also track your progress because it mentions exactly how much money you need, and how much time you have left for you to save the specified amount. Assuming that your monthly salary is $170,000; put aside $75,000 monthly for the house payment, and you have given yourself a time frame of at least 8 years to save $5.5M, then it's very possible that you will achieve that goal. Therefore, the goal is achievable and realistic.

Overall, create SMART goals instead of general goals because you will more likely to act on clearly defined goals rather than vague ones. Making your dreams into reality will be easier if you're focused, motivated, and can clearly see the target that you want to reach. So if you want to realize your dreams and be successful in life, make goal setting a habit. Start setting your SMART goals now.