How To Use SMART Goals

For Greater Success

The setting of SMART goals is a crucial factor for success and greatly pushes the odds in your favour if carefully developed.

It is also used as part of annual performance review processes as well as for strategic planning purposes for corporations and businesses.

Over time, the application of this technique has become wide and it is now used in many settings where the development of goals is important. This varies from large organisations to personal plans.

How to set clear and helpful goals
The setting of clear goals is a valuable skill which anyone would do well to master.

So how do you go about goal setting and what are SMART goals? Briefly and in the most widely used form a SMART goal is one that is:
Specific,
Measurable,
Attainable,
Relevant, and
Time-based

There are various variations to this, which you can read about in the foregoing link, but ultimately the purpose of setting goals in this way is to help clarify them as much as possible and in this way increase the chances of achieving them.

You can learn this simple and important skill easily and use it in your own personal and corporate planning. This worksheet will be very useful in giving you a good start in developing this skill. After some time of using this you will find that it comes naturally and you will be able to do it without much effort.

If you are still stuck or unsure, you may want to read these goal setting tips. They have been developed form practical experience and will save you lots of time and effort.

You will also find this article on going beyond setting goals to actually achieving them usepful.

Power Coaching With Mind Kinetics and SMART Goals
PCMK™, which is the coaching technique, used by Cornerstone Executive and Life Coaching Ltd, utilizes the setting of SMART goals in all of its coaching tools.

No life coaching session ends without helping the client come up with clearly outlined goals that they can work on in their own time and at their own pace.

The reason for this is very simple: Not developing a clear plan of what you are going to do after a coaching session is as good as not having had the session.

Although a lot of insight and understanding of the issue or goal being dealt with will have been gained during the session, solid progress will only be made if concrete action is taken based on that insight and understanding.

Another important reason to set these goals is in order to break tasks, changes or challenges that may seem daunting at first glance into simple and manageable steps that can be easily attained and measured.

The result is greater confidence and peace of mind as you make steady progress in achieving your goals.