SMART Goals for 2011
I used to never have New Year’s Resolutions. I figured if the goal was important enough, it didn’t need to be limited to just New Year’s. However, this year I’ve changed that view. With balancing a new family, a new house, along with work and volunteering opportunities, I need to be a bit more focused in 2011.
Which brings us to SMART goals.
As I’ve written before, I’m a huge fan of SMART goals (but not a huge fan of acronyms). SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable (but difficult), Relevant and Time bound. These five components help create a goal that we’re likely to accomplish.
A recent study said that people’s New Year’s resolutions last less than a week. That’s a pretty humbling (and embarrassing) result. The biggest reason is that people often set goals like, “I’m going to lose weight.” But what does that really mean? How are you going to do it? How much weight? When will you lose it by?
The goal of losing weight just doesn’t give us much to stay focused on. And people need to have something to work towards to be focused.
So here are my SMART goals for 2011.
- To finish the second round of editing my book on Managing Volunteers by February 1, and the third round of editing by May 1st. With the goal of having a publishable form done by the end of the year.
- Get back on track with exercise by hitting the gym 3 times a week and cutting calorie intake to 2000 cal / day.
- Spend more time with my family. Set aside 20 minutes to read to my daughter when I get home from work. Spend 20 minutes cooking in the kitchen with my wife. Then have an uninterrupted family dinner at the dinner table.
If I hit those three goals, I will consider 2011 a success. How about you? What are your SMART goals for 2011?
image provided by flickr
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[...] goals. Especially since they have a profound impact on actually getting my work done. I set SMART goals for 2011 (which I mostly finished) and I set SMART goals for 2012 (and I’m doing much better on these). [...]
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About Eric Barrett
Eric Barrett is an organizational consultant who specializes in applying psychology to communication. He has worked as an organizational psychologist for over a decade, and is most recently working on developing social media guidelines for a real estate company. He also teaches psychology at Xavier University. In his spare time he...wait, who are we kidding...he has no spare time.
He is available on a limited basis for speaking engagements and consulting projects. For more information please see the About Meaning to Work page.
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