Goal Setting Through the SMART Method

Goal setting is very important. Skipping over the WHY for a second, here are some stats on goal setting that you should consider:

• TD Bank surveyed users and found that 89% of the people who write out a plan accomplished their goals.
• Forbes found that those who write out goals are 1.4X more likely to accomplish them than those who don't. 
• Journal of Applied Psychology found that those who wrote down goals were 40% more likely to achieve them. 
• Harvard Business Review found that 14% of those with written goals were 10X more successful than those who don't.  
• HBR also did another study that 35% of the people who set goals don't accomplish them because they were too broad. It's this last topic that I want to focus on here. 

The biggest challenge is that people make their goals too broad. They make it too general. "I want to be a millionaire" is truly relegated to the TV show. Or "I want to be a successful business owner". What does that even mean? "Success" is subjective.

Make your goals SMART Goals. Make your goals Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Let's break this down:

Specific:

"I want to lose weight" is not specific. "I want to lose 25 pounds" is better.  Even better is "I want to lose 25 pounds by cutting out bread and sugar".

Measurable:

I covered weight in the first example. But you can dive into specifics like "I want to lose 25 pounds and reach the goal of 25 push-ups daily". Or "I want to build a business to $1.2M through 20 different commercial cleaning clients".

Attainable:

"I want to make one million dollars in my cleaning business". That's cool and all but if you lf you only do business through a tiny town, like Natoma KS where I had a great-grandparents where a million will buy the entire town with no stop signs or traffic lights, then you may not hit your goal. But if your service area includes enough properties to pull in a few thousand each monthly each, and there are 100 of them, then that goal becomes a lot more attainable.

Relevant:

Make the goal relevant. "I will make $1M in new revenue through 20 commercial office building clients" is relevant. Saying "I will make $1M in new revenue through 1 preschool cleaning client" is not relevant. Or it has to be one heck of a preschool.

Time-Bound:

Make your goal time bound. Put a date on it. A goal is a dream with a date next to it...otherwise it's just a pipe dream. "I will make $1M in new annual revenue through 20 commercial office buildings by December 31, 2025" (note: this is published October 2023...definitely attainable with effort).