Free Printable SMART Goals

It’s time to set some goals!

Many people equate goal setting with new year’s resolutions. To be brutally honest however, we all know how new year’s resolutions most often turn out. Resolutions are more like wishes usually made by someone who has no idea how to go about making them a reality. This free printable SMART Goals is important if you are serious about success.

If you’re in business you might have heard of SMART Goals setting but the principles apply equally to setting of personal goals. This technique can also be used for short or medium term goals.

This week’s free printable

S — SMART Objec­tives Should Be SPE­CIF­IC and STRETCHING

The ​“S” in SMART usu­al­ly stands for spe­cif­ic, to ensure the objec­tive is not vague. This means your goal must be clear. Unclear objec­tives are a recipe for dis­as­ter and cause uncertainty and confusion which means you won’t reach your goal or achieve your objective.

Are your SMART goals spe­cif­ic enough ? Take some time to hon­est­ly con­sid­er this. For exam­ple, “lose some weight” is very far from a spe­cif­ic objec­tive. how much weight do you need or want to lose? 1 kilograms, 5 kilograms or 10 kilograms? Setting a vague goal can also be an easy out when you hit a speed bump like a holiday. Who of us hasn’t picked up weight around Christmas?

A spe­cif­ic objec­tive would be to say “I want to love 5 kilograms by my birthday”. It is specific in terms of what the end goal is and also by when this needs to be achieved.

In addi­tion to spe­cif­ic, objec­tives should be a stretch­. Stud­ies have shown that when an objec­tive is stretch­ing, it is more moti­vat­ing for the indi­vid­ual and leads to high­er lev­els of achieve­ment. The stretch does need to be reasonable. To use the example above it would not be possible to lose 5 kilograms if your birthday is next week.

M — SMART Objec­tives Should Be MEASURABLE

When it comes to the definition of  SMART objec­tives, ​“M” near­ly always stands for measurable.

Ask your yourself the question – what does suc­cess look like for my goal? This is the only way you will know if you have achieved your goal. This is why objec­tives need to be track­able, mea­sur­able goals.

In my work we refer to “benefits realisation” meaning you can spend a fortune on a project but if you don’t know what success looks like you won’t know if the cost of the project was worth it. This also keeps us honest to implementing fixes, enhancements and process improvements which will help the business achieve its objectives instead of just “nice to have’s” which don’t increase productivity, minimise risk or increase profitability. Apply the same principles in setting your goals. If the goal is related to your business do the same no matter whether you want to increase page views, social media followers or sell more products.

The mea­sure of a SMART objec­tive could be quantitative or qualitative. A quan­ti­ta­tive mea­sure might be​“Reduce time to respond to an enquiry or order”, while by contrast a good qual­i­ta­tive objec­tive would be ​“Reduce the time it takes for pages to load”.

A — SMART Objec­tives Should Be A……..

This let­ter is where some SMART objec­tive def­i­n­i­tions may differ. The most com­mon vari­a­tions are achiev­able, attain­able, aligned and agreed.

Depending on your objective and your business the variation you choose may be different. In my world where my blog is mine alone the  ​“agreed” point is moot. If you work with others the “agreed” objec­tive is way more important because anything you force on someone is most likely to be met with a lot of resistance. You will be far less likely to succeed because the employee/ team member/ family member won’t take own­er­ship or buy into the goal. That’s just the way we are wired. On the oth­er hand co-creating objectives will have a far higher chance of success.

R — SMART Objec­tives Should Be RELEVANT

For a goal to be effective it must be relevant to you or your business. Oth­er­wise there really is no point.

Again some SMART objec­tives def­i­n­i­tions use​”real­is­tic” for the R. Yes, setting real­is­tic goals is very impor­tant but if you have used achiev­able as the A, this is not really nec­es­sary, as the two words are essen­tial­ly mak­ing the same point. It makes sense then to switch between realistic and relevant depending on what you set as your “A” objective.

Differentiating between BHAGs and short and medium term goals

An example of this would be setting yourself a target of 200 000 subscribers to your email newsletter if you have just set up your blog. This might be a BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) which is a long-term goal but in the short term it is not a realistic/relevant goal. When you are just starting out setting your initial goal at a much lower level will allow you to aim for your target and achieve success before you reset for the next goal for your business to grow. Additionally, setting your sights too high at first will also lead to disappointment because you won’t be able to experience a sense of achievement.

T — SMART Objec­tives Should Be TIME-BOUND

It is very impor­tant that objec­tives have a tar­get date, or a time frame. This not only gives you a sense of urgency but also helps you when you checking if you have suc­cess­ful­ly achieved your goal. Having a clear suc­cess mea­sure defined goal (i.e. the objec­tive is mea­sur­able) with a tar­get dead­line (see “S” above) means it should be relatively easy to track progress towards achiev­ing your objec­tive.

Using your free printable SMART Goals

Download my free printable SMART Goals and start right now on the path to success.

Questions to ask when writing SMART Goals

Here are some helpful suggestion or questions to ask yourself when you are setting up some SMART goals.

Remember that each of the criteria or categories is as important as the other so don’t be tempted to leave one out.

Specif­ic and Stretch­ing	Is the objec­tive clear, pre­cise and unambiguous? Is the objec­tive stretch­ing (but still real­is­ti­cal­ly achievable)?
Measur­able	Does the objec­tive say what suc­cess will look like and how it will be mea­sured? Is this a quantitative or qualitative goal?
Achiev­able and Agreed	Is the objec­tive real­is­ti­cal­ly achiev­able (but not too eas­i­ly), tak­ing into account the time-frame, resources and sup­port that are available? Have you agreed on the objective with anyone who needs to help you achieve it?
Rele­vant	Is the objec­tive rel­e­vant to what the busi­ness and /​or the team need to achieve? Will it sup­port the achieve­ment of your over­all goals for yourself or your business?
Time-bound	Has a spe­cif­ic date been agreed for when the objec­tive should be completed? Does the tar­get date link back to the goal?

Add these other free printables and build your personal binder to plan, organise and keep track of your goals:

• Free Printable Meal Planner
• Free Printable Shopping List
• Free Printable To Do List
• Free Printable Contact List
• Free Printable Daily Planner
• Free Printable Productivity Planner
• Free Printable Weekly Planner

I hope this post helps you in setting some SMART goals for yourself or your business. Remember to follow the principles outlined above to give yourself a much greater chance of achieving your objective. Good luck and let me know how it goes.