January has ended and now February is here……….. That means that it’s likely that by now, you’ve already abandoned any resolutions you had for yourself. Don’t like the name resolution?? That’s fine, let’s just call them goals. That’s what we’d call them any other time of the year right??

Did you know that there is one thing you could do to make you 42% more likely to not only stick to working on your goal but to actually achieve them???

This simple technique is going to seem so simple that you might not even believe but we know from research that it makes you 42% more likely to achieve your goals.

Are you ready for it………

WRITE YOUR GOALS DOWN! It’s as simple as that but then again it isn’t. In fact, there are ways to write your goals that are SMARTER than others (you’ll notice a pun there soon 😉 )

I’m sure that at some point, you’ve heard the term, set SMART goals right? If not here is the run down on the acronym:

S: specific

M: measurable

A: actionable

R: realistic

T: time bound

With this blog, we actually want to “one up” or even “two up” the SMART acronym with another acronym that we think is just a bit SMARTER (uh oh, there’s another pun).

S: specific

M: measurable

A: actionable

R: realistic

T: time bound

E: exciting (my favorite one)

R: relevant

Let’s start From The Top

“S” for Specific:

Goals have to identify exactly what it is that you want to accomplish with as much specificity as possible.

Here’s an example of a bad goal…”I want to lose weight…”

Now this is more of an aspiration than anything and let’s be honest, there’s likely 90% of the population that would easily say that they want to lose weight. But again, this is not specific enough to be a goal yet.

Now, if you were to say, “I want to lose 10lbs of fat…” that is much more specific and well on its way to being a good goal.

“M” for Measurable:

The M stands for your goals needing to be measurable. The old adage says that “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.” So you want a goal that is measurable so that you’ll know when you’ve achieved it and can check it off.

So a bad goal might be, “I want to earn more money this year…” Not very specific nor does it really have something we can measure to the extent of knowing if we reached it or not.

A better way to say this would be, “I want to make $5000 more this year than last…”

This makes it both Specific and Measurable since you will know when you’ve reached that amount. You have to have that line where you know whether you’ve won or lost or how what you’ve done so far measures up.

Another good example of this would be, “I want to reduce my body fat percentage to 22% by the end of this year.”

“A” for Actionable:

This is the how behind your goal.

A bad example would be, “I want to be more consistent with working out…”

Now, a good example would be, “I want to workout 3 times per week…” or “I want to have 1 date night a week with my spouse…”

Those are actionable, measurable, and specific.

“R” for Realistic:

Now, here is where you have to be careful…when I say realistic, I am not saying that they should be within your comfort zone. They have to be in your discomfort zone…not in your delusional zone, but in your discomfort zone. You’ve got 3 different zones, your comfort zone, your discomfort zone, and then your delusional zone. One GIANT thing to always remember is that “Change happens in your discomfort zone…”

So here would be a bad example of what might be an Unrealistic goal for me…”I am going to qualify for the PGA tour this year…” Now, I’m terrible at golf, but even if I was decent at golf, this would be very unrealistic and I would be just setting myself up for failure.

Now a good example would be, “I want to lower my golf handicap by 3 strokes…” this is still outside of my comfort zone. You still want to push yourself, but you don’t want to have a goal that is going to be very easy for you to achieve because it won’t have the same meaning or significance.

“T” for Time Bound:

EVERY goal needs a date associated with it. This is the difference between having an aspiration and having a goal. If it doesn’t have a date, it isn’t a goal it is just an aspiration. The great thing about a deadline is that it creates urgency and it drives action.

A bad example would be to say “I want to lose 20lbs..” but if you were to say “I want to lose 20lbs by June 1st…” this completely changes things.

Deadlines are really really powerful especially when it comes to goal setting.

An important thing to consider with setting deadlines with goals is to make sure that all of your goals don’t have the same deadline, because then you’ll get a good way through the year letting yourself off the hook and then you hit the panic button or just completely blow them off.

“E” for Exciting:

Your goal has to be compelling! It can’t be something that is so incremental or something that someone else wants you to do. It has to be something that is exciting to you personally.

So, a personal example of something that would be compelling to me is, “I’d like to place within my age group in a Spartan Race by the August races in West Virginia”

Now, that is exciting to me, I can’t wait to do that. Once I started racing last year I was hooked and this year, I’m prepared to go all in on training! And your goals have to have that excitement to you. It’s the juice that’s going to carry you through when you want to quit. Now, if fat loss is a goal or hitting your first pull-up sometimes, those aren’t terribly exciting. But they might be important to you and remain compelling. In that situation, you really need to dig deep and consider why that goal even exists. More than than likely once you ask yourself why, answer that, then ask again and dig deeper, and repeat this at least 5 times, you’ll get to the true “why” behind your goal and determine that’s why it is exciting for you!

“R” for Relevant:

Your goals have to be relevant to where you are in your life. So, for me, I can spend an hour in the gym every single day because I am “well, I work here” in a place where I can afford to that, and it is relevant to where I am in life. For you, you might have a full-time job, 3 kids, etc, so 7 days a week of training may not be relevant to where you are in YOUR life. So you can’t measure your place by someone else’s. We need to take a step back and let ourselves off the hook and to be honest with what is relevant to your season of life. Sometimes we can be SO idealistic that we have the mentality that we’ll settle for nothing but the best or nothing at all, and we often end up doing nothing. So it is really important to be honest and know if this is going to be relevant or do I have to do something less ambitious right now given where you are.

Once you’ve got your goal created through the SMARTER format, make sure to write it down with pen and paper! If you only put it on your computer, It’s like your brain says, look, if you don’t have enough effort to write these down, we’re not going to take them seriously. In fact, there is research done by Dominican University by Dr. Gayle Mathews and she studied a group of those that did write their goals down and a group that didn’t and those that DID write down their goals and she found that if you just write your goals down and do nothing else, that it increases the likelihood of achieving that goal by 42%! So why wouldn’t you write them down, write your goals down!

A Couple Of Tips For The Road:

-Limit your goals to a maximum of 7-10 per year and align them with another overall yearly goal.

Let’s work that backwards:

Set an annual goal, then break it down into 2-3 quarterly goals that lead to your yearly goal, then from there, break the quarterly goal(s) into easily digestible, non overwhelming weekly action steps.

If you’d like some help coming up with a plan for the year or maybe even for the next few months, check out our upcoming Sprint To Spring Break Challenge that kicks off 2/26/2018!!

As always, if you have any questions at all, feel free to comment below!

Thanks,