I hope that as you think about setting your goal, you will aim high! Make it a goal worth attaining by setting it high and something that inspires you to achieve it. To make it S-M-A-R-T, make it Specific and Measurable, as we’ve already discussed. Now we want to be sure it’s Achievable and Realistic.
Of course your goals cannot be impossible. “I will flap my arms and fly to the moon” may be inspiring and aiming high, but it’s an impossible goal. Don’t set goals that are obviously and absurdly impossible. On the other hand, don’t be so sure your goal really is impossible. Some people have gone to the moon, albeit in a space ship, not by flapping their arms.
Some goals are possible and achievable, but they are not realistic. I will offer a personal example. I enjoy playing chess tournaments online. I have climbed up in the ratings to about 1800 (that’s a little above average). I could set an achievable goal to become a master-level chess player, with a rating above 2000. If I had the desire and commitment to set everything else aside and devote myself to study and practice, I could attain and achieve that goal.
But it is not a realistic one for me. The sacrifices it would require of time and resources from other, more important goals, make becoming a chess master too costly for me. Priorities must be set to determine not only if a potential goal is achievable, but whether it is realistic.
Setting priorities is an important part of setting your goals. Is the goal something for which you are willing to pay the price? Are you ready to set aside other goals, or set aside immediate satisfaction, for the much-greater satisfaction and reward of achieving the goal you are considering?
Goals that are realistic might still be difficult. Perhaps you are very overweight. Or your sugars consistently run high. You may have tried without success to get these things under control many times before without success. But now you are learning about a new System that starts with setting a S-M-A-R-T goal. If you really set yourself to it, you might find success where you could not succeed before.
One of the keys to success is a goal that is Time-oriented, the last letter of our SMART acronym.
Goals by their very nature are not instant, but take time to achieve. Time, then, is the framework within which you work toward your goal. Because of this, you must set a time-frame for achieving your goal. Without it, you do not have a goal at all. You will not achieve your goal “someday”. Someday is like tomorrow in that it never comes.
Set a reasonable and specific date for completing your goal. Make the time-frame a part of the goal itself. In other words, your goal might be stated something like this: “I will lose forty pounds by August 3rd of this year.”
Time is of course a measure, part of your “Goals, Means, and Measures”. As a measure, it can be broken down into smaller segments. Years can be broken down into months, months into weeks, and weeks into days. You can set sub-goals anywhere along the time-line. Just be sure that the sub-goals move toward achieving the main goal.
This is one of the main keys to success and WHY THIS SYSTEM WORKS. You set sub-goals along the time-line that are small enough and short enough to grasp and achieve. The long-range goal may seem difficult or even impossible, but YOU KNOW YOU CAN AND WILL ACHIEVE IT by accomplishing sub-goals – daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly – until you reach your long-range goal. Success at last!
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