Secrets to Successful Change Series: Part 2
In the process of brainstorming your New Year’s Resolutions, are you taking the time to make sure you are being SMART about it?
Before I begin, I do need to take a moment to state that I actually do not like the term New Year’s “resolution”. I sense too often when we make “resolutions” we feel that if we lapse even just once, that it’s time to throw in the towel and give up on that resolution. Therefore, a few years ago I stopped making New Year’s “resolutions”, and instead make New Year’s Goals. To me, “goal” has the idea built into it that if you fail once, that’s okay – you just work harder the next time to try to achieve it. The word resolution is defined as the act of resolving something. When we resolve, it means we make a decision to do something. This makes it seem like it is a process that happens at one given point in time (I decide I am going to do something), and is not an ongoing process. However, goals are things that we are trying to do or achieve. Inherently, we are constantly working toward goals, and perfection is not expected – especially not right from the beginning. Goals are continual works in progress. When working so hard on our goals, there is a feeling of great accomplishment when we can actually say we’ve accomplished it. So, from here on forward, this post will focus on goals instead of resolutions.
Choosing goals for the New Year at first can appear to be a simple task (See my previous post for common New Year’s goals, and to learn whether they are effective). However, the chance of the goal being successful, may come down to the actual goal itself, and whether it was an effective goal to begin with. For the remainder of this post, we will explore an effective way to set goals, and making sure they are SMART.
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Depending on the resource you use, SMART is an acronym to ensure goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound (some resources use other words in this acronym, which will be mentioned briefly in appropriate section below). This technique for setting goals began in the business world, and has now been adapted and altered to fit a variety of situations. Therefore, although we are using this in the sense of making New Year’s goals, please realize this can be applied to many different situations.
SPECIFIC
When setting a goal, we should ensure that it is not a vague goal, but that it is specific in nature. This allows us to focus on something explicit, and helps us to know if we are on the road toward achieving the goal. When we refer to Specificity of a goal, we are asking the five W questions that we all remember from grade school (Who, What, When, Where and Why, and most also add in the question of How).
As we saw in our previous post (Are New Year’s Resolutions Effective?), a common New Year’s goal is to exercise more. In theory, it looks like a good goal. However, it is an extremely vague goal, for which it could be hard to know exactly what to do, where to start, and difficult to know if you are actually achieving it to the extent that you wanted to. “Exercising more” may involve getting up and walking to the fridge more often (loose definition of exercise), or being able to bench press 150 pounds. It’s hard to know what you are working toward if you are not specific with your goal.
With most New Year’s goals you are referring only to yourself in the goal, so the Who is (usually) inherently you. The next step is to add in What exercises you would like to do, Where and When you will exercise, How you will accomplish this, and the overall Why you want to accomplish this goal. We can turn the vague goal of “exercising more” into “I want to increase and my health and fitness by being able to continuously run a 5K (3.1 miles) in the next two months. I will accomplish this by running (or combination of running and walking) at least three times per week around my neighborhood, right after work. I will start by running for a half of a mile, and walking the rest of the distance. I will increase my walking/running ratio until I can run the entire 3.1 miles.”
In reality, this goal could be achieved in many different ways, so please don’t take this as the best example of how to do a couch to 5K program. In fact, the best strategy would be to alternate walking and running intervals, with ever-increasing run times, until the goal is achieved. However, the example is used to illustrate that the added information helps the goal to be more specific, which aids us not only by stating the plan we have developed to help us reach that goal, but it also gives us a context to help us remember why we want to achieve this goal. The more specific your goal is, the more likely it is that you will be successful in achieving it.
MEASURABLE
The only thing worse about not reaching a goal, is when you don’t even know if you’ve reached it. Effective goals need to be able to be measured. It is hard to know if you’ve reached a goal, if you don’t have a concrete way in which to measure it. In the example above (exercising more), the “more” was very illusive. How do you qualify “more”? In our example, we traded “more” in for something a little more concrete. Part of the measures in this example goal is exercising by running at least three days per week. Within the first week, I can already know if I am on my way toward reaching my goal. The ultimate end point of being able to run a 5K is another measurable event. I can measure my distance, and can evaluate how close I am to achieving this goal. If your goals are not measurable, it is hard to know if you have reached them or not. Giving yourself a way to evaluate your progress helps you to know if you are reaching your accomplishments or not.
ATTAINABLE
You want goals to challenge you, and push you to grow as a person. However, you also need to make sure that the goals you choose are ones that can actually be attained (in some sources, the A in SMART can stand for Achievable). This component of SMART goals guides us to make sure our goal is a challenge, but reminds us that we need to be able to accomplish the goal, or we will likely give up shortly after beginning. It would not be reasonable to set a goal of being able to run a marathon in two month’s time, if I am currently sedentary. However, choosing to run a 5K in that same time period is a goal that is much more attainable, and I am more likely to succeed in achieving that goal. Note: In the business world, the A sometimes refers to Action-Oriented (ensuring the goal is one that you can take action toward, and is not a passive goal).
REALISTIC
Whereas Attainable refers to whether the goal is something that can accomplished at all, the Realistic component of SMART goals refers to whether the goal is a reasonable goal FOR YOU. Ask yourself – Am I willing and able to put the effort into working on this goal, and could I actually work toward achieving it? In the example above, it may be attainable to run a 5K in two months. However, if I hate running in cold weather, if I work two jobs and support three kids as a single parent, if I have physical limitations that prevent me from progressing that quickly, then the goal is not realistic for me. I have to ask myself if I am willing to put in the work required to reach this goal, or it is unrealistic for me to think I would ever achieve it. Note: In the business world, the R sometimes refers to Relevant, making sure the goal is relevant to the mission of the company.
TIME-BOUND
For a goal to be effective, you need to know when you can reevaluate to see if you have achieved that goal. There needs to be a time period associated with the goal. Giving an ending point can help provide motivation (a task with a deadline is more often accomplished in a timely manner than if it is left open ended), to keep your progress moving along. In the goal above, we chose two months as our ending time point. After two months of running, we can then test ourselves to know if we can actually run that 5K, and know whether we have achieved that goal. Make sure that the time period you choose is realistic for you, as our overall goal is success. Don’t set yourself up for failure from the beginning by choosing too short of a time frame in which to achieve your goal.
Regardless of what you are working toward, make sure to check if you goals are SMART. SMART goals are more likely to lead toward successful changes. The third part of this series emphasizes tips and techniques that help us to achieve our goals.
What are your SMART goals for this coming year? Let me know down in the comments below, or on my Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/ThinkBelieveLive).
Sources:
ACSM’s Exercise is Medicine: A Clinician’s Guide to Exercise Prescription. Jonas, S; Phillips, EM. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins: 2009.
Questions and Answers: A Guide to Fitness and Wellness, 2nd edition. Liguori G; Carroll-Cobb S. McGraw Hill: 2014.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/