I cherish the day I learned how to create SMART goals that actually work. On that day, I willingly and wholeheartedly abandoned the 47 wonky, unachievable goals I would write every year before the New Year’s Eve ball dropped.
When I created my Goal development workbook, “One Goal: 6-Month Journey for Creating Your Dream Life“, I discovered that A SMART goal is only smart when it aligns with your needs and desires. It must also tick the box on each component of its acronym.
To create SMART goals that actually work, ask yourself if that goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant/Results-Based and Time-bound. If your goal meets all of these requirements, you’ll know that it can actually work.
When you write your SMART goal statement, it’s important to understand all the components that must be in place to make that happen.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant/Results-Based
- Time-Bound
- SMART Goal Example – Let’s Go to Florence
Specific
Being specific starts with knowing exactly what you want. Knowing what you want requires you to dig deeper into why you want it and if the goal is clearly defined.
A clearly defined goal is key to being specific. You can’t have a measurable goal unless it’s specific. The statements ‘I want to buy a house’ or ‘I want to be rich’ are not clearly defined. They are therefore not SMART goals
What does the house look like? Where is it located? How much will it cost? If you include those answers in your SMART goal statement, then your goal is hyper specific. Try to make that goal statement as filled with these important details as possible. But at the least, know the answers to those questions.
The same goes for wanting to be rich. Rich is not a dollar value. How much money would you need to have before you can say you’ve achieved this goal? If you don’t know how much you want, how are you going to work toward getting it and how are you going to know how close you are if you don’t have a specific dollar value.
These are questions you must be able to answer about your SMART goal statement before you start the journey. So be as specific as possible and answer all the questions before you commit to creating your SMART goal statement.
Measurable
Once you clearly define your goal, the next step is to determine when you’ve reached it. Can you track your progress from start to completion? At the end of your goal journey, what will a successful result look like?
Tracking the steps on your goal journey with a check-off list is a great way to make your progress measurable.
Achievable
Whatever your goal is, make sure you either have or can attain the tools and resources you need to successfully achieve it. Focus more so on the possibility of attainment than on your current abilities. Sometimes the hardest part is believing that you can. Everything you do in life will require belief in yourself. The belief that you are far more powerful than you think and far more worthy of the success you seek.
If the required abilities and tools can be acquired, you need only take the steps to assure you get them and use them toward the results you wish to see.
Relevant / Results-Based
Your goal must be relevant to what you desire. This is where knowing exactly what YOU want is paramount. The key word here is YOU. Your goal statement must be relevant to you in particular. It’s not designed to fulfill someone else’s idea of what you should want. It’s all about what is in alignment with what you want out of life. That’s why knowing first that your goal is relevant to you, creates the strongest foundation for your SMART goal to be successful.
If it’s what you, as an individual spirit, want, it’s easier to stay the course if things get difficult.
I also like to include the idea that it should be Results-Based as well as Relevant. You want to be able to see the possible results of achieving every step you will take before you take them.
Can you sit and imagine how things will look when you check off the box for each step in your journey? Can you see yourself sitting and basking in the sun of your new life once this goal has been achieved?
If you can visualize living in your dream goal life, you will see the possibility of the results before they happen and therefore have a motivating visual of the results to work towards.
Time-Bound
If you don’t have a due date, you won’t know when you want to see the results. You also won’t know how much time you have to get to that goal. You can choose an exact due date or a timeframe like in 6-months or 5-years from this particular date.
Make sure your due date is realistic though. You don’t want to create added stress to any part of your journey. Life already adds these things sometimes, without your approval, so choose a realistic timeframe.
SMART Goal Example – Let’s Go to Florence
What if you wanted to go on vacation to Florence, Italy, but you didn’t want to go into debt over it. If you turned that into a SMART goal, you’d be financially fit and ready to go by the time you need to pack.
How specific and detailed should you get when creating your SMART Goal? Being as specific and as detailed as possible will produce the best results. The more relevant checkpoints you commit to and hold yourself accountable for, the more likely you will be to reach the exact goal you set out to achieve.
Goal Statement:
For my trip to Florence, Italy (Relevant) on June 7th 2025, I will make deposits into my high yield savings account of $100 on the 1st and 15th of each month for 12 months so I can have enough money to pay for all the costs I will incur, without going into debt.
If you research the costs of travel, hotel, meals, and expenditures and know exactly how much you are willing to spend for the entire trip, include that amount in your statement. That will make your goal even more specific. In most cases, this is the best thing to do so your goal is more measurable.
Sometimes it’s ok to have a ballpark figure as your end goal. If you have a good relationship with money it will be a lot easier. But you must have an end goal so that your goal is measurable.
Once you research the banks that offer the best interest rates, you can include that in your goal statement too, along with the interest rate so you’ll have a more accurate calculation of how much you will have by your target due date. I use Marcus by Goldman Sachs. They offer a good rate and quick transfers.
When you have a monetary SMART goal, it’s even smarter to earn interest on your money. The more, the better. That will either help you reach your goal faster or allow your end results to be higher than your initial target amount.
The SMART goals strategy doesn’t only apply to your life goal, it also applies to the daily goals that lead to the achievements of your life goal.
No matter what your goal statement is, when you know that all the components of your SMART goal can be quantified and substantiated using this method, you’ll be more confident that you have SMART goals that will actually work. All you need to do is take action, put in the work, and believe in your greatness enough to know that you will succeed.