A new year…a new decade, actually! What are your goals? I used to practice personal goal setting at the beginning of the year and then get terribly frustrated at myself for not seeing them through. To be completely honest, I usually forgot about them until the time came to think about the next year. Can anyone relate? If so, you’ll love this new approach to personal goal setting that I have embraced and use with all of my clients. I have found that a combination of two goal-setting methods yields the best results. SMART Goals + The ONE Thing Method = successful personal goal setting!
SMART Goals
You may have heard of SMART goals before. It is an acronym and approach to personal goal setting that has been around for some time now. Here is a quick breakdown of the acronym:
S – Specific – Name a specific task, outcome, or skill that will be the focus of the goal.
M – Measurable – Make sure your goal is easily measured. Including a number or a clear outcome is important.
A – Attainable – Ask yourself if the goal is realistic and achievable based on the expectation and timeline.
R – Relevant – Make sure your goal is worthwhile and important to your future.
T – Time-Bound – Set a reasonable timeframe for accomplishing the goal.
If you write your goals to follow this acronym, it helps hold you accountable and allows you to more easily track your success.
I had a student tell me recently that his goal for this semester is to get good grades. Awesome! I fully support that goal, but it is really broad. After further discussion, we applied the SMART acronym to make sure he makes this goal a reality. He revised his goal to “get good grades” into “To obtain a 3.5 GPA this spring semester by earning an A in English, Humanities, and Art and at least a B in Biology and lab.” After revisions, his goal is much more specific and measurable and he feels confident that it is attainable in this semester. Personal goal setting is an important part of planning for the future.
The ONE Thing
The ONE Thing method is one that I adopted two years ago that really changed the way I approach personal goal setting. I use it with my students and clients because of the way it connects our goals to benchmark actions.
Gary Keller’s book, The ONE Thing, is a quick and easy read. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a good personal or professional development book to start the new year. Here is how to use this personal goal setting method:
- Think of the one thing you really want to accomplish someday personally or professionally (or both!). This is called your “ONE Thing” or “Someday Goal.”
- Begin working backward to identify the tasks, actions, etc. that you need to complete to successfully reach that someday goal of the one thing that is really important to you. Start with the one thing you need to have done five years from now to reach that someday goal.
- Continue this process with the one thing you need to do in the next year to reach the five-year benchmark and so-on.
- Someday goal: What is the ONE Thing you want to accomplish personally or professionally?
- Five-year goal: What is ONE Thing you need to accomplish in the next five years to help you meet that someday goal?
- One-year goal: What is ONE Thing you need to accomplish in the next year to help you meet the five-year goal?
- Six-month goal: What is ONE Thing you need to accomplish in the next six months to help you meet the one-year goal?
- Month goal: What do you need to do this month to meet the one-year goal?
- Week goal: What do you need to do this week to meet the monthly goal?
- Revisit the goals as necessary to update the week/month focus.
As you can see, there is a lot of power in aligning your short-term goals based on the long-term goal! By working backward, you are ensuring that you are forming benchmarks along the way.
SMART Goals + The ONE Thing = Optimal Personal Goal Setting
I believe that combining the SMART technique and The ONE Thing method is where the magic happens. I like to see my students and clients begin with The ONE Thing approach and then go back and check each benchmark goal against the SMART acronym to make sure it is specific and measurable. The combination has proven to be very successful when it comes to personal goal setting!
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