Yes, You Need SMART Goals!

Here’s the thing about SMART goals: they’re here to stay.

Look no further than a quick Google search to tell you that SMART goals are an essential part of strategic planning for any workplace that wants to be successful in reaching their quarterly, annual, or multi-year objectives.

SMART goals can help create focus and clarity. So why, when they’re introduced in a meeting, are your coworkers’ eyes more glazed over than the last donut lingering in the middle of the conference room table?!

Because, friends, SMART GOALS CAN BE EFFING BORING.

And that’s why I work with my coaching clients to set not only SMART Goals, but SHIFT Goals. If SMART Goals are the bread, SHIFT Goals are the butter (if you missed it, I talk more about those here). SMART goals are great for communicating, SHIFT goals are great for motivating.

Check out the video below for my thoughts and then sign up below for a free SMART and SHIFT goals worksheet!

After you’ve checked out the video, won’t you head down to the comments section? We want to hear from you! Where are you using SMART Goals to help convey focus and clarity?

You can make a real difference for someone else when you share your story. So don’t be shy about leaving a comment. Every little bit of wisdom helps!

Listen to the audio recording here:

Video Transcription: – Hey there friend, it’s Stefanie Krievins where I share tips and encouragement so you can fix your hot messes. And today, we are talking about part deux, part two of goal setting. So if you haven’t already, go back and watch my first video on SHIFT Goals. This is a framework I use with my clients. This is a framework that I use in my own business, that brings more motivation, more fun, more inspiration to the goal setting process because, frankly, SMART Goals are boring. But, they’re needed, right? This is how we communicate in business. And this is how we create focus and clarity for our work is using the SMART framework. The point in my mind for your goals is not that you use the SMART framework, but that you use the SMART framework to create clarity and focus, which is where the magic happens. So, let’s break this down. And if you Google it, you’re gonna find multiple ways to spell out the acronym SMART. Here’s the ones that I use: So, S stands for specific. You’re zeroed in on what you’re actually going to do. M is for measurable. So, you need to know the numbers that define success. Otherwise, you probably don’t know what success is, so you need to find the measures that are relevant to your goal that says, “This is how we know we’ve been successful.” Attainable. I don’t do realistic. I don’t think that’s inspirational, I don’t think that’s helpful. That doesn’t help you accomplish something impactful in your business and your life. But, instead, attainable says that, “Okay, I’m gonna stretch, I’m gonna grow, “I’m gonna learn, but I’m gonna make this happen.” That’s what attainable is in my mind. It doesn’t mean realistic, or I really have to half ass it and I’m still gonna hit that number. That’s not attainable. Attainable is I’m gonna have to put in some hard work, but I know I can make it happen. There’s enough within this goal that is within my control that I can do this. Relevant. So, relevance in my mind is related to alignment with your strategy and your goals. So, if the goal is relevant, it means that it’s connected to your strategies, to your objectives, to your values, to your mission, to the vision of your company. And then going back down the hierarchy, it’s also connected to your annual operating plan, to what you need to get done in a 90 day sprint, to what you need to get done every month, every week, every day. That’s alignment. When you can take your daily work and connect it up to your 90 day sprints, to your annual plan, to your strategic plan, which is usually three years, to your values, to your mission, to your vision, that’s alignment, that’s relevance. And then of course the T is for timed, right? It has to have a deadline. As human beings, if it doesn’t have a deadline, it doesn’t get done. So, this is the framework. I think it’s really important. You need to use it in your business plan, you need to use it as a way to communicate with your team, with your peers, with your manager. It’s really helpful. Again, boring but helpful. I think a necessary evil here. In my work, what I hear with my clients oftentimes, where the confusion comes in with goal setting is they’ll come to me with a goal that is “Increase sales in new territories for small businesses.” What does that mean? Right? Increase sales by how much? What are the new territories? How do you define a small business because every business defines that slightly differently. So, instead, I help my clients recraft that into something with much more focus, much more clarity. And so, instead of saying, “We’re going to increase “sales in new territories by selling to new businesses,” that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. We’re gonna clarify that goal by saying, “We’re going to increase sales by 15% “to businesses that have less than 250 employees, “which is how they define small business, “in our northwest region, which includes three states.” I’ll say that again, “We’re going to increase sales “by 15% to companies that have less “than 250 employees in our northwest region.” That’s a SMART Goal. That has clarity. That tells you where to focus your activity, right? You have a geographic area. You need to call on these three states. You know how much you need to increase sales by. And you know what type of companies you’re calling on. That’s a clear, focused goal. So friends, again, SMART Goals- boring but needed because they force focus and clarity in our work. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timed. Friends, I wanna hear your SMART Goals. What are you focused on for 2020 and beyond? Either a wildly important goal that you’re gonna accomplish by 2023 or your goal for this quarter. Share it in the comments because your goal is going to inspire somebody else. And now it’s time to get off the internet and be a problem solver who gets the real shit done! And I’ll see you next time!