Welcome back. As I promised last month, we’re continuing our discussion of picture, the second of William Bridges’ Four Ps (Purpose, Picture, Plan, and Part), with an explanation of how to make your goals SMART.
SMART, as you undoubtedly guessed, is an acronym. It stands for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound.
You need all five characteristics to have meaningful goals. We’ll discuss the reasons why SMART goals are important later, but first let’s look at two examples.
A Not-so-Smart Goal
“One of my books will appear on the New York Times bestseller list.” I suspect this is a goal many of you share with me. It’s wonderful to aspire to bestsellerdom, but on closer examination, as a goal, it’s lacking several of the SMART characteristics.
- Is it specific? Not really. Since I’ve phrased the goal as “one of my books,” it could apply to a book I’ve already written or one that I’ll write twenty years from now.
- Is it measurable? Yes. It’s simple to determine whether my name appears on the NYT list.
- Is it attainable? Possibly, but since I have very little control over whether my book reaches enough of the right readers at the right time to catapult it to stardom, I would suggest that it’s not truly attainable.
- Is it relevant? Absolutely. Since reaching the NYT list would be an important step in my career, this is definitely relevant.
- Is it time-bound? By that I mean, have I specified the time within which I will reach the goal? No. The goal says nothing about timeframe. As a result, it’s difficult if not virtually impossible to establish a plan to reach it.
While it’s a valid aspiration, this is not a good goal.
A SMARTer One
“I will write two chapters a week so that I can finish the first draft of Amanda’s Great Adventure no later than November 1, 2019.”
- Is it specific? Yes. I’ve identified the manuscript by title and have given myself implicit interim deadlines by specifying “two chapters a week.”
- Is it measurable? Again, yes. Each week I can determine whether or not I’ve met my short-term goals, and on November 1, I’ll know whether I’ve completed the first draft.
- Is it attainable? For me, yes. I can typically write two chapters a week. However, if this were my first manuscript, it might not be.
- Is it relevant? Since finishing this particular manuscript is important to me, this is a relevant goal.
- Is it time-bound? By including the interim target dates as well as the final one, I have made this time-bound.
This goal met all five SMART criteria. That means that I can use it when I develop the plan, which is the next step in the Four Ps.
Now, let’s talk about why SMART goals are important. The reason is that they serve as guideposts, helping us reach success and keeping us from setting ourselves up for failure or frustration.
Using my SMARTer goal example, if I’d set a goal of writing four chapters a week when I knew that that wasn’t attainable, why would I even try? The objective of a SMART goal is to help define the picture, which – as we discussed last month – is one of the critical Four Ps, and to prepare us for the plan.
We’ll conclude our discussion of the Four Ps next month by developing the plan and identifying the parts. In the meantime, I wish you a joyous end to 2018 and a happy, productive beginning to 2019.
We’re looking at picture, the second of William Bridges’ Four Ps (Purpose, Picture, Plan, and Part), with an explanation of how to make your goals SMART.
(C) 2018 Amanda Cabot
Amanda Cabot is no stranger to getting to “The End.” She juggled a sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines and building a house long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year. Whether or not she kept her sanity during that time is debatable. Amanda is the best-selling author of over thirty novels, eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city.
Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.
You can find Amanda at:
www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/
http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/