Bring Your Vision to Life with SMART Goals

Consider the following scenario:

You’ve got this brilliant idea that’s going to help you get out of the grind and put you on the path to great fame and fortune. As you lay in bed, you start building out a vision in your head of what you need to do. It’s perfect, and you’re so excited to get started that you can barely sleep. You NEED to do this!

You’re up at the crack of dawn, have had your hit of caffeine and boot in to your trusty computer to get cracking. But as you think of ways to execute your vision, life starts happening around you: distractions pile on and the clock starts ticking. While you’re still committed to that game changing vision, you realize you don’t really know how to bring it to life, or indeed, where to begin!

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. This has happened, at one stage of life or another, to almost every single adult you’ve met. THIS is how a vast majority of ideas never see the light of day, some might argue for the better.

But for better or worse, you’re still committed to your idea. You know where you are; you know where you want to go. All that’s missing now is planning and executing those steps in between. Having a grand vision is incredible, but it can also feel extremely intimidating and distant when you don’t know where to start. And the longer you wait to start, the more intimidating and distant it gets, and it traps you in this vicious cycle of inaction.

The best way to overcome this paralysis of action is to organize your overarching vision into a hierarchy of smaller and smaller goals. And by far the most effective way to do this is by using the SMART goals framework.

What are SMART goals?

SMART goals provide structure to your grand vision so that you can work out the finer details and start making progress. They are the GPS route for your vision, to get from where you are to where you want to be.

SMART is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

Let us dive a little deeper into each one of these elements.

Specific

What do you want to achieve?

Every goal you set needs to be specific. Begin by asking yourself, “What, exactly, do I need to do here?”. Target a specific area of improvement or action, and state it in clear, non-subjective language.

Take, for instance, a goal of getting fit versus a goal of losing 10 pounds. Wanting to get fit is a noble idea, but it is also rather subjective and non-specific because the definition of fitness changes from person to person. Instead, losing 10 pounds is a very clear, non-subjective goal because it retains its meaning regardless of context; it means the same thing to me as it does to you.

This is the most critical element of the SMART framework and will guide the rest of the steps in the process.

Measurable

What is your measure of success?

Next, the goal needs to be quantifiable and allow for measurable progress. Ask yourself, “How will I know that I’ve achieved my goal, and how will I track my progress along the way?”.

In our example, the goal of getting fit isn’t measurable because there isn’t one measure of fitness. The goal of losing 10 pounds, on the other hand, can easily be tracked and measured using a weighing scale.

Achievable

How will you achieve it?

The goal should be achievable based on available resources and existing constraints. Ask yourself, “Do I have the authority and the resources to achieve this goal?”. If you have both, think about how exactly you plan to achieve it.

At this point, you may decide to break your goal down further into smaller and smaller goals. In our example of getting fit, I may decide that I need to follow a certain exercise regime and a specific diet routine. Just remember that these smaller goals and action items also need to be SMART.

Relevant

Why do you want to do this?

The goal should align with your wider vision to be considered relevant. It needs to move you closer to your larger goal. In business parlance, your SMART goal needs to add value to your “stretch goal”.

In our fitness example, let’s say I want to restrict my daily calorie intake to 2000 calories so that I can lose 10 pounds over the next six weeks. I want to lose 10 pounds in six weeks in order to get fit, which was my overarching goal to begin with.

Time-bound

When do you want to do this by?

Every goal must have a fixed deadline by which you plan to achieve it. A goal cannot go on and on forever.

If your goal’s deadline is too far into the future, you’ll want to set periodic check-ins to track and measure your progress at regular intervals.

Making it all work

The trick to making SMART goals work for you is to break your vision down into smaller goals, and those goals into smaller ones still and so on until you can distill your grand vision into directly actionable steps.

The intention of setting SMART goals isn’t to blunt your world changing vision and convert it into a boring checklist, but to chart out a clear path to achieving that vision. Without a vision, you’re just mechanically moving from one checklist item to another without any real sense of progression or fulfillment. Without SMART goals, you have an incredible vision but no way to get there.

It is the synergy between your larger vision, or stretch goal and a hierarchy of smaller action items, or SMART goals that makes it all work.

Another great feature of SMART goals is that they work just as elegantly for personal goals as they do for larger, team-based or project-based goals. If you’re setting up SMART goals for a team, pair them up with the ARCI matrix so that team members know the exact role they’re supposed to play within each SMART goal.

The combination of SMART and ARCI is amongst the most powerful yet simple project management techniques there is.

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