There’s a set of questions that I heard about today for the first time. They could be useful as questions to ask yourself when you’re goal-setting and planning to create a new habit or change an old habit.
Ken Blanchard created this system, and it’s called SMART Goals. The idea is that when you’re planning, here are the areas you can ask yourself about:
* Specific: What specifically are you going to do? What do you ultimately want to accomplish? How? What are the steps?
* Measurable: What will you keep track of? How will you keep track?
* Accountable: To whom will you be accountable? Who else knows that you’re doing this and can share in your small or large successes?
* Realistic: What are your concerns about achieving this plan? How does this differ from when you may have tried something similar before? How can you ensure that the goal is attainable? Is the timeframe realistic?
* Timely: When do you expect to see results? Are there intermediate milestones?
What’s nice is that it’s a simple acronym, and using it can make sure that you cover a lot of the bases of setting a goal. You’ve probably come across Ken Blanchard with the One Minute Manager.
The accual ‘A’ in SMART is ‘attainable,’ but since that’s very close to ‘realistic,’ based on Margaret Greenberg’s advice, I’m using the ‘A’ for the word ‘accountable’.