Saturday, June 11, 2011

Tips on defining SMART goals

The SMART approach aims for a Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound goal definition of qualitative goals. 

SPECIFIC
Goals must be clear and unambiguous. When goals are specific, they tell you exactly what, when, and how much is expected. Because the goals are specific, you can easily measure your progress toward their completion.

MEASURABLE
What good is a goal that you can't measure? If your goals are not measurable, you will never know whether you are making progress toward achieving them. Not only that, but it's difficult to remain motivated when you have no milestones to indicate your progress.
 
ATTAINABLE
Goals must be realistic and attainable by the average person. The best goals require you to stretch a bit to achieve them. That is, the goals are neither out of reach nor below standard performance. Goals that are set too high or too low become meaningless, and people naturally start to ignore them. 

REALISTIC
To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. You should be certain that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is often easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because you enjoyed doing them.
Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Other ways to tell if a goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal. 

TIME-BOUND
Goals must have fixed start and end points. Commitment to deadlines helps you to focus your efforts on completion of the goal on or before the due date. Goals without deadlines or schedules for completion tend to be overtaken by the day-to-day crises that invariably arise in an organization. 
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