Do Smart Goals Suck?
This is a somewhat unusual approach I’m taking today because I’m running a guest post that being a Life Coach, if I’d read read on Raj’s own site The Positive Life I’d probably be diving into the comments to disagree vehemently with.
My initial reaction was to say thanks, but no thanks, but then I started thinking, what if I’m wrong, what if there is value to some people with this approach? It’s not very open-minded to reject an idea just because it doesn’t seem right to me.
I’m not going to tell you what my objections are at this stage. I’d ask you to read it, make up your own mind and then I’ll throw my 2 cents worth in at the end. If you think Raj is on the money and I’m wrong, tell me in the comments and I promise not to sulk…much.
Why Smart Goals Suck
What? You must be kidding. There are so many people who say Goals should be SMART and you are telling me – “They Suck”.
For those of you who are not aware about what SMART goals are. Let me just brief you about them. But, I am also going to tell you why they SUCK!!
As per the SMART Goal philosophy, A written down Goal should have the following attributes:
S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Achievable
R: Relevant / Realistic
T: Time Bound
I would like to throw some light upon the two attributes in the SMART goals philosophy:
Achievable, Realistic/Relevant
Smart Goals ask you to create a goal that is Achievable and Realistic.
I don’t believe in it, Human mind has got infinite potential, If we think whether our Goals will be achievable or not, or if we think our Goals would be realistic or not, then, we are putting a limit on what we can achieve in Life.
Bill Gates would not have been able to be the richest man in the world if he would have put limits on his dreams. Remember, he started his company in a Garage. Do you think Bill Gates would have thought that his goal is unachievable?
Anthony Robbins would not have been such a successful motivational speaker if he had put limits on his dreams and Goals, Remember, He was a janitor before he became a motivational speaker and author. Do you think Anthony Robbins would have thought that his goal is unachievable?
I believe if we assess whether our goal is realistic or achievable or not, then we are actually putting a limit on our thinking. History is witness to the fact that no great invention could ever be created if people had put a limit on their thinking.
Smart Goals suck big time. Think about it:
If they don’t suck, why would so many people still do not create and write down SMART goals for themselves?
If they don’t suck, why would so many people feel a bit overwhelmed about writing SMART goals that they even leave the idea of writing down their goals?
If they don’t suck, why would people still go to Life Coaches and pay them huge amounts of money and ask for their help for creating SMART goals?
If Smart Goals do not suck, everyone you know would have been creating and writing down smart goals for themselves. But as you and I know, a lot of people are not doing this. So, there must be some disconnect.
I am here to remove that disconnect, and help you create smarter Goals for yourself which may not follow SMART goals philosophy.
If you still don’t believe that “Smart Goals Suck”, Let me ask you, have you written down a Goal for yourself that exactly follows the Smart Goals philosophy?
How many people do you know who have written down their goals by following the SMART goals philosophy? If they have, what is the percentage of those people? These questions automatically give you the answer that Yes, smart goals suck.
Let’s find out why they suck….
Why do SMART Goals Suck?
Complexity
A lot of people already shy away from writing down their Goals. So, when it comes down to writing down their Goals, that use the attributes mentioned in the SMART philosophy, people actually find it a but difficult and complex.
Consequently they either tend to create a Goal that does not have SMART attributes or they don’t write down their goal at all. Whereas we all know that writing down goals is very important and smart people do that.
Too many attributes to consider in a Goal
I believe choosing five attributes for creating a goal might become too much for some people. You see, the intellectual level of everyone is different and everyone does not want to get into such a complex thing as choosing 5 attributes for writing down their Goals.
Come on, Let’s uncomplicate!!
People want simple things in their lives, I mean, already there are too many things that are complex, and at least our Goal Setting should be simple enough.
Writing down Goals should be such that it is simple for the person who is writing it down. It should be such that the person gets motivated to write down his Goals and take action on them.
GOALS should be such that they help the person ACT upon them and here comes the simple Goal Setting Formula – ACT
A: Assessable
When a person writes down his Goals, he needs to make sure that he is able to assess the progress towards the goal; therefore, the goal statement must contain some quantifiable/measurable term that can be used to assess progress towards the goal.
Example: I want to reduce 10 Kg in next 3 months
Here, 10 Kg is the quantifiable / measurable term through which progress can be assessed
Another example: I want to write 25 articles in next 30 days for my blog.
Here the number of articles is the quantifiable / measurable term through which the progress upon goal can be assessed.
If I would have made my Goal as – I want to write a few articles in next few days for my blog. ‘Few Days’ is not quantifiable, so it becomes very difficult for me to assess progress. Therefore, I need to mention a quantifiable term in my goal so that I assess the progress.
2. Clear
The goals should be as crystal clear as possible. Clarity helps give a direction to what exactly we want to achieve through our goal. Better clarity will induce more vivid images of Goal in the mind of the person who is creating the Goal. More vivid images will motivate the person to further achieve his goal.
Lets see how adding clarity to a goal statement helps:
Example: I will save enough money so that I can travel to my favorite destination next year.
I will save enough money so that I can travel to Greece next year
I will save 100,000 $ so that I can travel to Greece next year
I will save 100,000 $ by March 15, 2011 to go to Greece in April 2011 for a vacation of 10 days.
Which of the above statements do you think would create more vivid images in the mind of the person who is creating his Goal? Yes, you are right, It is the last one!!
Time Bound
This is one of the most important aspects to keep in mind while creating a Goal. If a time frame is not attached to a goal, it doesn’t have a sense of importance and urgency attached to it. A goal needs to be time bound and must have a deadline attached to it. Why? It is because a ‘some day’ approach doesn’t work.
If your boss tells you, I will pay you ‘some day’; will you work for him anymore?
You will only be able to achieve your goal if you have attached a deadline to it.
I am sure now you must be relieved to know a new simple technique that helps you ACT upon the goals you create. What do you think about the ACT GOALS philosophy? Do you think the concept will help you?
Guest Post by Raj who loves to inspire people and writes at The Positive Life.
Why SMART Goals Don’t Suck
I think Raj has made some really good points and I do think that for some people there is a benefit to making things as simple as possible, but my guess is that this is Raj’s take on what works for him, rather than a universal solution to an age old problem.He says:
“We all know that writing down goals is very important”
That simply isn’t true, in fact I would say most people don’t know that. I regularly get clients that have never written goals down and don’t see the value to begin with.
He also says people pay life coaches huge amounts of money to help them set SMART goals. Leaving aside my bank balance for a moment, I’ve never had a client come to me specifically for help in setting SMART goals, in fact rarely do I get a client that has even heard of SMART goals.
But rather than get incredibly picky with the language which I’m apt to do, I’d rather than a look at some of the areas where I think he has misunderstood the SMART method and why to some extent (but for different reasons) I agree it can suck..
A – Raj is correct that some of the SMART methods do include ‘A’ as being achievable, but none that I would take seriously. To me ‘A’ always has been and always will be ‘Action oriented” In other words, for a goal to be a real goal you have to do something. It has to have your involvement, otherwise it’s just a wish.
R – I’m with him here….up to a point. However, I go to great pains to explain what I mean by realism. Earning $1 billion per year, running a marathon at the age of 60 and giving away 1,000,000 copies of How To Be Rich and Happy are all realistic, because they are physically possible.
Thinking of the Bill Gates example he mentioned, well somebody has to be the richest man in the world, so that is possible, as is going from janitor to motivational speaker.
On the other hand if you’re a one-legged 4’ 6” Chinese women about to start collecting your pension, it’s not realistic to have a goal of making the US Mens Olympic Basketball team. Call me a dream crusher if you like, but that is just plain unrealistic.
So the key is has it ever been done before? If the answer is yes, then it’s realistic. If the answer is no, then the next question would be, is there any reason why it’s not been done before?
Nobody has done what we’re trying to do with How To Be Rich and Happy, but when you break it down there is no component part that is unachievable. It’s incredibly tough, but it still fits the realistic criteria as did running the 4 minute mile, space flight, heart transplants etc. Just because people may have said they were unrealistic doesn’t necessarily make it so.
Also, as you may or may not know I developed something called SMARTER goals which use the elements we have already spoken of, but also adds ‘E’ for ecology and ‘R’ for reward to make goals more sticky.
Both these are crucial in my opinion when setting great goals. I’ll not make this post any longer that necessary, so if you want to know more then you can download the complete FREE version of my book ‘Don’t Ask Stupid Questions‘ in which there’s an explanation, or read this rather long goal setting post. It also contains a YouTube clip at the bottom explaining the SMARTER method in more detail.
So what’s your take, do you think people don’t set goals because they see traditional methods like SMART, GROW or Well Formed Outcomes are too complicated, or do you think it’s they just can’t see the point or they’re just too damn lazy?
Basically Raj has renamed the SMT part of SMART to ACT. Nicely written post mind you and a joy to read. Thanks
@ Tony – Yes you’re right about the Gates/Allen dream
@ Jack and Sue – Thanks!
@ Brian – I think we all agree with that part. As long as it doesn’t breach the laws of physics, I say go for it!
I’m keeping this brief as I sm on my iphone but I agree with Raj. Just because it’s been done before is no measure to live by
I’ll refer to Seth Godins recent post saying: All you need to know is that its possible
High goals are often missed but if you dont try, and more importantly believe in it, then you are 100% going to fail
@Tim – what Sue said – I hope that your wife is doing ok!
@Sue
Thanks very much for your feedback! :) I originally assembled the goal worksheet and framework for personal use but then realized that it could make a nice blog post, and be potentially valuable for others too.
I don’t remember where I came up with the concept behind my blog title – but it’s certainly not original to me. Counting days instead of years has been around for a while (e.g. someone told me of a Moody Blues song with a similar theme), and the theme is also found in Tim and John’s “How To Be Rich And Happy” book, among others.
Sounds like your former boyfriend had the exact right idea of how to use this concept in a positive way – i.e. to regularly reminding yourself to avoid wasting one day (or even just a fraction), since you don’t have an infinite number of them.
@Tim – Hope your wife is doing okay.
@Jack – Read your article and it sums up everything that has been said here and organizes it all really well. Nice.
I had to laugh at your blog’s name, 32,000 Days. I used to date a guy who had done the math on how many days he probably had left to live and had arrived at something in the neighborhood of 13,000 (he was in his late 30s). He brought it up all the time, saying things like, “I’m not going to spend one of my 13,000 days hanging out with those boring stiffs.”
Bill Gates and Paul Allen had a vision of “a computer in every home – running Microsoft software”. The big picture goal is always very important.
On the article, I couldn’t really see a huge difference between SMART and ACT, perhaps a slight difference in semantics.
I don’t think making a goal achievable and realistic limits in in any way. But I think the basic point that people do limit what they think is achievable is a good one. People are sometimes too realistic and practical, and they need to let go a bit on that.
Goals are important, and whether they are ACT or SMART they need to be clearly envisioned in your mind, just like Bill and Paul’s vision for Microsoft.
As others have said, quite astutely, going from “no system” to “something… anything… please!” is the most important, first step in goal setting. “Any system” is the little 20% step that will get you 80% of the way there, from the Pareto’s Law standpoint.
Once someone has the habit of regularly writing down goals and checking in every so often, then we can talk about the nuances of the system, and squeezing out that last 20% of performance.
I adapted a system that works well for me, as outlined at
http://thirtytwothousanddays.com/blog/2010/04/how-to-set-goals/
but the real key is doing *something*. Once the habit’s set, then the details start to matter more.
Actually let me just respond to Mark – Yes spot on, I doubt very much whether many high achievers got there by initially setting huge goals. My guess is they set none at all (and yes some very successful people don’t set goals) or moved toward where they are now incrementally.
Thanks to everybody for some brilliant comments, and of course to Raj for supplying a provocative post.
I’m actually sat at the hospital waiting for my wife to come out of surgery so forgive me for not answering individually.
I do think there have been some excellent points made and I also think that some people have been at cross purposes. What I think I’ll do is write another post tomorrow or Saturday and try and clear up some of the points.
I do think the SMARTER method I developed covers off some of them however and I’ll go into that in more detail.
I do think that sub-goals that are more manageable are crucial and I said that in my monster goal setting post I linked to, even though NOTHING is totally within our control.
Probably the one thing I want to really emphasize in the post as I know most people don’t rad comments is the fact that there is no right or wrong way to do this and what works for one person may well be useless to another.
There seems to be an assumption that people who achieved great things set out to achieve that specific great thing. This might sometimes be the case – and we should probably ask them how they did it (I wonder if they’d tell us anything about how goals were set at all?!).
What was Bill Gates’ goal? Richest man in the world, biggest software company, fame? These might all be by-products of his real goal, if he even had one.
Goals are great if they’re serving you well. And if they’re serving you well, use whatever method works best for you. However, keep your eyes open on your journey to reaching that goal – you may be presented with new insights or different opportunities that are more closely aligned with your values and serve you (and others) better. You may not achieve your original goal, but you might be happier.
@Thekla
I love that way of thinking! It’s a brilliant idea to combine ‘desired outcomes’ which you are working toward and more specific goals that you can control.
That way, if the specific goals are achieved but the desired outcome is not, you don’t have to view yourself as a failure; you can acknowledge that YOU succeeded in what you set out to do.
If you didn’t get the desired outcome because of circumstances beyond your control, you’re much more likely to be resourceful and think up some new goals that will move you closer to that desired outcome rather than giving the thing up because you failed.
I once heard that Thomas Edison said something like he persisted because he didn’t fail to invent the light bulb 1,000 times – he succeeded in finding 1,000 ways not to do it.
Sometimes we don’t know exactly what we need to do to get the desired outcome but by committing to actions we can control then we can continue to succeed whilst working towards it.
@Barry, I completely agree with you that most people don’t think that progress is success. However, we’re talking about constructs to help people move closer to their ideals, right? That’s why someone invented the SMART goal and Raj came up with ACT.
I’m just adding the construct that a goal is simply an ideal you’re working toward. People can be taught to think in terms of making progress toward that goal, just as they have to be taught SMART or ACT.
I think of what you are referring to as objectives.
In general, someone starts with a vision. This is the big, overarching goal that is understood to be a long-term achievement and possibly never attained – for instance, “I will be a gorgeous, sexy woman who makes men’s jaws come unhinged.”
Goals are the intermediate points on the path, like “I will lose 0.5 kg in 2 weeks.” I’m suggesting that people learn to work toward progress and not perfection on their goals.
However, as you said, they will eventually achieve them if they stick to their objectives, which are the specific steps that they believe lead to the pot of gold, like, “I will exercise for 30 minutes 5 days a week.” They just might not get there in the timeframe they initially set for themselves, hence the emphasis on progress.
I think mindset is key in working toward goals. Even if you’re focused on specific actions, as you’re saying, you can still lose your motivation if you don’t follow through on those actions a few times.
If you can keep the progress idea in mind, you’re less likely to quit when you run into trouble. You can say, “I skipped my workout twice this week. However, I did get in three workouts, and that’s beneficial and more than I used to do.”
Since it’s fairly inevitable that people won’t follow through on their objectives at some point, the progress mindset seems critical to me if people are going to keep from getting discouraged.
K. I’ll shut up now. :)
I think we use the word “goals” to mean too many things. I think there is value in having SMART goals, but typically these are really measurable smaller milestones of much bigger projects/outcomes that we don’t have 100% control over whether or not we will achieve them. That’s part of the fun and part of the challenge– but getting to the huge dream on the horizon works better if you create smaller step-stones to help you get there. SMART goals are the stepping stones, but you can’t build a life just around stepping-stones… they have to go somewhere. In short, they have to align with something bigger. Sometimes a lot bigger! The SMART criteria should not be used to make your desires smaller, but to map out the road to getting there enough that you can take the right steps.
When I work with time management clients on goal-setting, I like to make a distinction between a goal and a desired outcome. The goal is the SMART piece and 100% under the client’s control. The outcome is what they want to come out of one or more goals, long-term, and since it interacts with the world, the client can only influence it… not completely control it.
Thanks for sharing such a thought-provoking viewpoint!
@raj Thanks for replying. I totally agree with breaking a big goal into smaller chunks but I still maintain that if you don’t know exactly how long it will take/what action is truly required, you are not in control of the goal and it is not helpful to you. If you can guarantee that 30 minutes per day will allow you to complete lesson 1 for example and you want to commit to that then great, that’s a helpful goal.
If, on the other hand, you can’t be specific about how long it will take, then you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into and whether that 30 minutes is likely to deliver that result. What happens if you work for 30 minutes a day and still don’t complete lesson 1 as a result? How could that impact negatively on your motivation?
External deadlines (those set by others like your boss, your teacher, the IRS and so on) make us achieve goals by forcing us to drop everything to meet those deadlines if we need to (the all-night essay/report/tax-return writing session). This is because there is a massive negative consequence to not getting it done so ‘whatever it takes’ does come into play.
However, many personal goals are not affected in the same way so often any timeframe we set is more arbitrary and with less negative consequences for failure. In light of this, it makes perfect sense to me to focus only on committing to an amount of action within a timeframe rather than making the goal result specific if we can’t control that result.
Will most people really be prepared to eat dust for two weeks to get down to the ‘target weight’ by the 3 month deadline if they’ve only lost 6kg of the 10kg they planned with a fortnight to go? Probably not, unless there is a massive negative consequence of failure. Furthermore, if they do miss the deadline and fail the goal, they’re less likely to continue their efforts.
This is why I suggest making your goals relate only to things you can control. That way you know exactly what you need to do and your success or failure is down to you, and you alone.
@Sue I really admire your ability to view all progress as success and I agree that all-or-nothing thinking can be harmful. Nevertheless, that’s how many people do think about goals and I think if goals are set and failed on a regular basis then people are more likely to feel like failures rather than pleased with any progress they have made.
If you decide to lose 0.5 kg in two weeks, make your plan, stick to it to the letter and don’t achieve that goal then it’s very hard not to feel like you’ve failed. But you haven’t failed, the goal was flawed to start with. If however, the goal had been to follow a healthy-eating plan for the same time period you have succeeded.
The only difference between the two scenarios is that you were totally in control of the second goal but not the first. In this example, chances are that following the plan will deliver that weight loss anyway, but you cannot control that directly, therefore it shouldn’t be part of your goal.
As a girl, I’m sure you know all it could take to fail would be to weigh yourself at wrong time of the month and a bit of water retention has kept your weight level. Three of four days later, you could have lost 2kg but if you committed to the timeframe and wrote it down, it’s not going to feel like the success it is.
Sorry to go into biological details about a specific example but it does illustrate the point that if you do not have direct control over the outcome of your goal, it’s probably not a useful one to set in the first place.
@Sue
Yeah, All-or-nothing thinking can be demotivating.
You see, If we aim for the stars, even if we miss, at least we reach the moon.
@Barry, I agree with what you said, but at the same time, a larger question is, do we really have to succeed at our goals anyway?
Having the goal of losing 0.5 kg in two weeks sets you up to make a plan. If you follow the plan and don’t reach the goal, you’ve still made progress toward it.
I’ve reached the point where I feel like progress = success. Feeling the victory of reaching the exact goal is a little bonus you sometimes get.
All-or-nothing thinking can be demotivating.
@Tim, do you find that people who like big goals achieve them as often as people who break them down into smaller goals? I make the assumption that most people burn out if they race in too fast and try to accomplish huge things in a short span of time. It sounds like you’ve found that assumption to be wrong.
@Barry
If your student creates a Goal – “I will complete my lesson 1 by 20th May”
you see, the goal gives a direction. Then – the question comes – How to complete lesson 1 in 7 days?
The tasks required to achieve the Goal would be – Practicing the stuff for 30 minutes everyday.
by the way, Thanks for such a detailed explanation of what you think about the same :)
lol, When I started typing my comment, I could only see replies from Kathy, Nicole, Sue and Dee.
@Megan
I am glad to know your views that we should not limit ourselves.
@Kate
I am glad you liked the post. Yeah, realistic is something subjective. It will differ from person to person
@Terry,
Yup u r right dear :)
@Barry
Its true that a person will not know how much weight he/she is going to lose in a particular time, I believe once you write a Goal, it gives you a direction. Once you have that direction, then you can break down your goals into tasks.
Example – as you said,
“I will practice this piece for 30 minutes every day before next Tuesday”. This would be one of the tasks required to achieve the goal of becoming slim and losing weight.
One problem I have is with goal setting generally concern the Assesable/Measurable aspect.
Too many people (myself included) set goals that they have no control over and, if they don’t achieve them, feel like failures. Let’s use an example from above and in the comments:
Raj says a goal might be: “I want to reduce by 10kg in 3 months.”
Sue says in her comment above that may be setting the bar two high so suggests: “I want to lose 0.5kg in a week or two”.
I don’t think either of these are good goals because the person setting them is not in direct control of the outcome. If you set goals when your actions are not the only factor in the success or failure of the goal then you stand a lot less chance of succeeding.
Losing weight is the perfect example. You can’t possibly know how much weight you’re going to lose in a given timeframe – it will be different for each person. Therefore you can’t possibly determine a realistic or assessable goal in these terms.
Setting a weight-loss goal is ridiculous because you can’t control how quickly or slowly your body will shed the weight. All you can control is your actions. A goal like: “I will take exercise three times a week” or “I will cook healthy meals at home 4 times a week instead of ordering takeaway” is better because it is only concerned with your actions.
When I teach my piano students, I always tell my them a goal like “I will learn to play this piece by my next lesson” is a bad one because you can’t possibly know at the outset how long it’s going to take.
A better goal is “I will practice this piece for 30 minutes every day before next Tuesday”. That way your success or failure is linked ONLY to your own actions.
In the first goal scenario, if the student practices for half an hour every day but still can’t quite get to grips with one small section of the piece, they will have failed in their goal – even though they have done a lot of good work they should be proud of. This won’t motivate them going forward.
In the second scenario, the pupil does exactly the same amount of work and knows the piece just as well, but they will have succeeded in their goal and feel successful and motivated.
If your goal is not entirely within the scope of your actions you stand much less chance of achieving it. Whenever you set a ‘measurable/assesable’ goal such as an amount of weight to lose or a new piece to learn, unless you know EXACTLY the actions that are required to produce that EXACT result, you’re not really in control.
I’m not arguing that SMART or ACT goals are useless, merely that goals in general are only a useful tool if their success or failure is linked purely to the amount of action you’re prepared or are able to take.
Unless the goal is SO important to you that you’re prepared to take time off work to learn that piece or eat only lettuce for a week to make the number on the scales right (in other words ‘whatever it takes’)then it should only concern the actions you are prepared to commit to or you’re just setting yourself up for failure.
And let’s face, if you have a goal that you’re determined to achieve ‘whatever it takes’ and are happy for that to happen at the expense of everything else then you won’t really need to write it down.
For the rest of us who are trying to achieve things in the context of a life, family and many commitments, it’s important to remember that the only truly measurable thing is the action that we take.
Hi Tim,
What I meant by saying – “We all know that writing down goals is very important” was that the people reading your/my blog would be knowing it since they are reading a blog on self improvement. Well, I guess you are right, not all the people do know its importance.
@Kathy and @ Tim
I would say I dont believe it to be true – “if it’s been done before or can be done with hard work, it’s realistic!”
This is because I can give you a few examples from History in which people did something which others considered unrealistic and those things had not been done before
example 1- when Wright brothers invented airplanes
example 2- Thomas Edison invented light bulb
example 3- invention of internet
example 4- 16 people riding a bike
example 5- a deaf man conducting Orchestra (Beethoven)
There are many more realistic examples which were considered unrealistic before great people did them.
So, I still believe that the concept of Realistic should not be there while setting Goals as it might restrict what we can achieve in Life!!
@Nicole
Yeah, you are right, Taking action is extremely important, After all, If we dont take action, we will not be what we want to be…
@Sue
Yeah, Its always a good idea to break down your Goals into sub-goals and perform those baby steps to achieve the final outcome.
I am glad that you consider ACT Goals as a good starting point for thinking about Goals.
@Dee,
I am not saying that the Job of Janitor is for losers, but dont you think its inspirational that a Janitor who used to live on a very small salary in a very small house, now owns a mansion and inspires the world.
Being a Self help guru is not the epitome of success but yes, you cant deny that Anthony Robbins is successful.
As far as I know, Bill Gates has not shared with the world whether he had created it as a Goal or not but I am sure about Anthony Robbins, he had created it as his Goal. He has also told about the same in his book – Awaken the Giant within.
@ Kathy – Actually that’s a very good point. A million in a week would have been logistically almost impossible. We did actually set the end of 2011 and that will be a stretch. And I agree most people simply don’t know or see the benefit in setting goals.
@ Nicole – I agree there isn’t a huge difference but there is with SMARTER because the single most important element imho is the ‘R’ of reward. What does a goal really give you at a core level?
@ Sue I’m working on using suck into every title. In fact I’ve set myself a goal ;-)
Agree and disagree on what you say. Some people like huge goals and get turned off by baby steps.
@ Kate – I think there’s a certain element of semantics and on how we define realism. But you’re right, it is a tad of a stretch to move to $1b a year, although I wont say unrealistic, just highly unlikely.
@ Megan – Check out SMARTER because that contains they ‘why’ in spades.
@ Terry – Yep.
@ Dee – Check out ‘Outliers’ by Malcolm Gladwell. Gates had a shit load of good luck!
A few points that spring to mind.
Did Bill Gates really start out with the aim of becoming the richest man in the world, or did he set realistic goals and build on his successes in a stepwise fashion? (I suppose he must have had some good luck too.) We are, after all, looking at this from the persepctive of now. We see the end result rather than the details of how he got there.
SMART goals only set limits for a set timescale don’t they? There is nothing to stop us setting new goals and aiming higher later on. We can have a dream in the back of our mind, but to get there we usually have to move forward in a realistic way, and I wonder how many people have given up after failing to meet targets set too high?
As for Anthony Robbins. Going from janitor to speaker and author is only inspirational if you think that the job of janitor is for losers, while being a rich (is it always about money?)self-development guru is the epitome of success.
Great Post. Yes, shoot for then moon, if you reach half way not a bad thing!
I think the main thing is to have a clear goal written down. Having goals swish about in your head is no good, they need to be on paper.
They also need to be specific (or clear!), I completely agree that the ‘some day’ thing is rather pointless, some day will never come!
I found the part about realism interesting. Yes there are some things that are just not going to happen (although that lady on the basketball team would send ratings soaring!!), but sometimes the distinction is not clear and people limit their goals because of there limiting beliefs of what is realistic. For example, a cleaner on a council estate having a goal of making £1bn a year would never see this as realistic, although it may well be possible.
Mind you this is more to do with her limiting beliefs than the goal…….hmmmmm a complex subject!
Maybe this is where some help is appropriate, breaking goals down into smaller, ‘more realistic’ targets makes a big difference to their achievement and sometimes a life coach, or similar may be the best person to guide you on this.
Right, I really am rambling now. But defintely food for thought, thanks for a great post,
Kate
http://www.improvedconfidence.com
Interesting post. I’m a firm believer of SMART goals, but I do know that it is merely a rough guideline of how to set goals. I also agree with Sue, the “why factor” is lacking. The “why” is what pushes us to our goals.
As for setting a time frame…the thing is…let’s face it, some people are lazy. Without a time-frame. Say you want to lose weight, you’ll just keep procrastinating and procrastinating until you’ve forgotten all about losing weight.
But you’re right in saying that we shouldn’t be limiting ourselves to just what is realistic and attainable. Many great people (ie Bill Gates, Walt Disney) did the unthinkable (but they may the exceptions to rules). As for us commoners, it helps to see if our goals are just in sight. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t aim for the stars too.
PS…Here’s another approach to goal setting http://sn.im/w6s6t
So will all post titles now include something about something sucking? If so, that sucks. :)
I think a missing piece in goal setting is often understanding why you’re working toward that goal in the first place. Often people take on goals based on what they think they should do rather than something that they really see value in.
I also think sometimes by assigning specific measures and deadlines, we de-motivate ourselves if we set the bar too high.
For example, with the losing 10 kg example, that seems like quite a bit of weight to lose and 3 months sounds so far away. How about just losing 0.5 kg in the next week or two?
I think it’s important to take baby steps and really break the goal down into manageable pieces if it’s a challenging goal…and you probably wouldn’t be setting it up as a SMART goal if it were something you just naturally did, without any trouble.
I think both SMART and ACT are good starting points for thinking about goals, but just using a clever acronym doesn’t create the motivation to follow through.
I don’t see a great deal of difference between SMART and ACT. I believe most people have never set goals because they don’t fully understand the benefit or they have written “resolutions” so many times to no avail that they have given up on the process. Just like with positive thinking, the Law of Attraction, etc… the key to setting goals is Action. Without the action, the goal is just a statement written on a piece of paper. It takes on no more power from having been written than if it were left in the mind.
Goals are meant to be a plan for success. Something like a blue print drawn up by an architect. A beautiful home or building can not be built with any sort of stability without first having a blue print with which to work from.
So I agree with Kathy. It isn’t so much about how as it is that we do and then act.
I often find people don’t set goals simply because no one has ever really given them a system that works. I frankly don’t see a lot of difference in the two. Okay, so we act on them, but then that’s what goals are all about. Otherwise it’s just a list on a piece of paper. I do agree that many people don’t realize it’s important to write goals down, that’s often an “Aha!” moment when I talk about it in workshops. Both systems above have the same criteria of being specific and measurable. As for being realistic, I absolutely think goals should be realistic and I love your thought that it means if it’s been done before or can be done with hard work, it’s realistic! I think realistic is an important part of things, otherwise you have people who say “I set a goal and it never works.” Your goal didn’t say you would give away 1,000,000 copies of the book in a week, that perhaps would have been unrealistic.
In the end, what’s important is that we set goals, that we find a way that works for us, and that we act on them!