Essential Steps To Succeed With Smart Goal Setting

In this article I want to take you through a process of setting goals that once you use on a regular basis will become second nature. You will set a goal, look at it and instantly be able to recognize whether it is S.M.A.R.T or not.

S.M.A.R.T. (in case you do not know) is the acronym for
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timebound

Specific
Getting specific is about deciding when you want things to happen. If you know you want to earn $50 in 6 months you will know how to plan for that. If you know that in 3 months you will need $5,000 then you can work towards making that happen to.

You need to ask yourself questions like
What do I want to achieve?
When do I want to see my results by?
How will I make this happen?

Here is a not so great example:
I am going to earn money with my blog

Great example
By February 2010 I will be earning $500 a month as a part time blogger selling affiliate products and writing my own information products.

Can you see that you have answered the questions what you want to achieve, when you want to see your results by and how you will make it happen. Now let us say it is June 2009. You know you have 9 months to make that happen. If you already earning $400 a month this will not be a big stretch but if you are just starting out it might be too big a goal.

Measurable
You can not manage what you do not measure!
If you have no idea how many subscribers you have reading your blog right now how will you know that you hit your goal of adding an extra 300 in two months?
If you know you have 100 readers and by the end of a two month period you want to increase that to 300 readers you can now measure whether you achieve that or not.

If it is June 2009 the goal 'By February 2010 I will be earning $500 a month' is measurable. You can check that each month to see how close you are to attaining it and adjust your level of work accordingly.

Here are some not so great measurable results
'I want more people reading my blog'
'I will earn money'

Hopefully from what I have written so far you already know what the great measurable results are:
'My blog has an additional 500 readers in four months'
'I receive $300 from selling Clickbank health related affiliate products'
Once you are specific and you know how you will measure your results you move onto looking at whether your goal is attainable.

Attainable & Realistic
According to my dictionary to attain something means to achieve with effort. In order to attain your goal you are going to have to put in the effort to achieve it. There is no way around this one so look at whether you have set your sights too high or low.

Realistic is a little like being measurable and attainable you need to decide whether your goal is realistic based on the skills and abilities you have. Remember that you do not always have to rely on your own efforts so if there are skills and abilities you do not have you need to focus on who can help you and how.

You may also need training to reach your goals. If you love writing or have a passion to share and you love the idea of starting your own blog that is a great goal, but know you are going to need help in getting it started because you realize that you know nothing. This is when you take on a mentor or set about learning how to make money blogging.

Setting your goal to be earning $3,000 in 2 months when you have no idea how to blog may be an unrealistic goal and joining a training program then setting your goal to start your blog in 10 months is really an under achievement of what is possible.
So be realistic based on the time you have available to make your goal happen, your skills and abilities to work on that goal and the number of people that can help you to achieve it.
Again go back and focus on the specific and measurable examples for examples of how your goal can be realistic.

Time bound
I remember in 1998 setting a goal that I said I would achieve in 5 years. Three years later I was still saying 'in 5 years I will achieve X.' Can you see my obvious mistake! Every year I kept saying 'in 5 years' and the 5 years kept moving forward.

In 1998 my goal should have been 'by 2004 I will achieve X' and that would have made it measurable for me as well as specific and attainable.

In order to complete something you must have a time by when you want to complete it otherwise you will keep moving forward like I did or it will never get started. If someone wants me to complete a piece of work and says 'give it to me when you are ready' chances are they will wait for years! If they say to me 'I need that in three weeks' I now have a specific time to complete it by and can work towards that.

SMART goal setting really works when you take the time to stop and think about what you want to achieve, how you will achieve it and by when. Then you simply do the work necessarily to achieve your desired results.

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