Smart Goals

One of the biggest difficulties that many people run into in their adult life is setting smart goals. Goal setting is much more difficult than it should be, it seems. Many of us take setting goals for granted, but the way we think about our projects makes a profound difference on what we accomplished and what we do not. If you always set pie in the sky marks for yourself and get used to failing, you will never get there. If, on the other hand, you set goals that challenge you, but that are not beyond your abilities, you will set up a habit of succeeding each and every day. It is up to you. A smart goal is a goal you can reach.
For me, setting smart goals is all about organizing my life. I like to start everything in the morning, and I like to have everything well set out before I start. Every day, I set up a daily calendar. I schedule what goals I have to achieve that day, which ones I have to work on, and which ones I have to plan out for the future. Some of them are rather easy – for example, organizing a spreadsheet, doing the billing, or finishing the wash. Other ones, however, are more difficult. By combining easy goals that I can finish and more difficult projects, I am able to provide myself with reinforcement and then work my way towards my most important goals. Positive reinforcement, after all, is what it is all about.
Just because I set smart goals doesn't mean that I don't get to challenge myself. It does mean, however, that I don't lie to myself about what I am going to accomplish. You can set up smart goals that are indefinite such as “get in shape,” but you have to go back and divide them up into manageable pieces. If not, you can always deceive yourself about whether or not you have accomplished your goal. In my experience, people are either too hard on themselves are too easy on themselves when they do not define their goals correctly. Either way is a mistake. Only through setting goals which are concrete enough that you will know when you are done can you succeed in living your dreams. It is possible to do what you thought was beyond you, but it takes a lot of time and hard work. In order to finish a great project, you need to break it down into small pieces.