Setting SMART Business Goals

You have probably come across many articles, books, and audios that stress the importance of setting goals. Hopefully, you have taken the time to sit down and write out goals for yourself. But are you writing SMART goals? SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time Related.

SPECIFIC

Specific goals are written out clearly and have a set time frame. A simple hope of earning money by working from home becomes much more motivational if you phrase it as “earning $500 per month on a regular basis within sixty days.” Once you know what your plan is, it will be easier to achieve it.

MEASURABLE

Measurable Goals, will help you track your progress. Without some kind of metrics, it will be very hard to define when you have actually achieved what you want. In the example above, by defining how much income you want to earn and giving it a time frame, you will know instantly when those sixty days are over if you have met with success.

ATTAINABLE

Attainable Goals you know you can achieve. Don’t be fooled by the word “attainable.” It can still be challenging and require effort to achieve it, but it does need to be something you can do. For instance, if want to learn to build websites and you have absolutely no experience, you shouldn’t try to build a huge, portal website in a week. An attainable goal would be giving yourself a month to learn the software and build a small, but functioning website. Otherwise you will be putting pressure on yourself. If you are constantly setting unattainable expectations, you may end up doubting yourself and become so afraid of failure that you start procrastinating on easy tasks.

REALISTIC

Realistic Goals help to keep you grounded. While it is great to shoot for the stars you also need to be realistic about what you want. Using the first example, the idea wasn’t to earn $500 within a week. Instead, the goal was to earn $500 per month within sixty days. If you are new to working from home, it may take some time for your business to be profitable. Instead of setting one huge goal, break the goal down into manageable “mini-goals.”

TIME RELATED

Time Related Goals are sometimes the key to having real success. There is an old saying that “a goal without a deadline is just a wish.” Having a defined time line will keep you motivated. If you have an open-ended task, it will be easier to procrastinate, and therefore, harder to accomplish. However, knowing you need to accomplish something in a set period of time will spur you into action.