Topics Covered This Week
SMART goals aren’t just for business
Constantly striving to tick vague tasks off your personal to do list can be demoralising.
By adopting SMART tactics, you’ll become more focussed, achieve more, and feel like you’re finally getting somewhere.
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Hi, Christie here, recording episode 11 on Monday, the 26th of October.
I’m in the UK and it’s absolutely pouring down with rain, we’ve turned the clocks back and now it’s getting really into autumn. All the leaves are turning, the trees and everything are absolutely beautiful colours.
If you get chance to get outside, can take some photographs and drop them somewhere in my social media for me, I’d love to see them. I love autumn colour.
Today I’m going to bring you something that’s often associated with business, which is SMART goals. I’ll explain all about what they are in case you’ve not heard of them. It won’t be a long one, don’t worry. I won’t go on for hours, but I want you to take control of your life now because we’re in such weird times right now, where a lot of things feel out of control and out of balance.
And at the end of the year, a lot of people always go
‘Right next year, I’m going to do this.’
I don’t believe in that. I think if you want to change, then start your journey straight away. Instead of waiting for New Year and making resolutions that you know you won’t keep plan, having a to-do list and a bucket list or whatever else you prefer to call it, just do something now to make yourself feel better and just set some goals. Even if they’re mini goals just for yourself.
You don’t have to constantly strive, if you’re happy where you are, that’s fantastic. But this is just a little bit of advice on how to meet your goals a little bit more effectively, really, and how to set your goals so that you’re going to achieve them because there is nothing worse…
(Trust me, I’ve been there) …than setting goals for yourself and setting ideas and plans that are just not achievable.
The fact that you constantly fail them is awful.
It’s really disheartening.
It knocks your confidence.
And we just need a bit of boost in a bit of confidence in our mental health at the moment.
So SMART goals is what I’m going to go through. It’s true. There are a couple, two or three variations on it, but the way I learned it was that SMART goals are
Specific,
Measurable,
Achievable, or attainable
Relevant,
Timely, or time-bound.
And then if you want SMARTER goals, which is now another thing you can have, they are also either
Evaluated or exciting, which I like. I think that’s a great idea to add that on the end and Recognised, or reachable.
So I think SMARTER is okay, but I’m going to stick with SMART for now.
So how does this work in real life?
Well, in business, it can be quite easy to assess because you might have key performance indicators or you might have got specific figures that you’ve got to reach. If you’re a salesperson or, you know, profit, whatever, it can be very numeric, but in your own life, it can be a bit more difficult to think.
‘Well, how’s that relevant to what I do.’
I’ve got a couple of examples for you where I hear people saying,
‘You know that, well, I’m just going to eat healthier.’
What exactly does that mean? Obviously it’s relevant to different people in different ways, but instead of saying,
‘I’m going to eat healthier,’
which it’s a bit of a non-descript ambition and how do you know that you’ve succeeded?
And when you’re on a bad day and you’ve had a bar of chocolate, will you know that you ‘failed’ and feel awful about it?
So instead of saying that, make it a SMART goal and how about the time bound and the specific and the measurable things?,
Say ‘Once a week, I’m going to eat vegetarian’ or
‘I will drink one litre of fresh water every day.’
It’s a really specific goal that you can measure. You can buy a drinks bottle or use an old pop bottle that’s a litre, fill it up with water. When you’ve emptied it you know that you’ve drunk that in one day, that’s a really easy way of measuring what you’re achieving. It’s relevant because it achieves your goal of eating healthier, like the vegetarian option once a week.
That’s really easy to measure and really easy to sort of congratulate yourself and feel better about it.
A little vague goal that you may have, or may not have decided to do, but hopefully because I’m a book fan
‘I’d like to read more.’
I sometimes hear people say that,
‘Oh, I’d love to read more.’
You think, well, you’re not really going to achieve that if that’s your sort of vague goal, because when are you going to read more, how are you going to do it?
Instead of that, change your mindset and make it a really specific goal.
‘Every day I’m going to find at least 15 minutes to read,’
Whether that be an ebook or paperback or audio book, it doesn’t really matter, but you’ve decided that every day, so that’s the time bound thing.
You’re going to use 15 minutes of your day to read and maybe out on the end add
‘…and update Goodreads website.’
I don’t know if you’re aware of Goodreads website where you can put all your reading lists. I’m on there you can join me on there if you want to, I’ll put the link in the show notes.
You can keep track of what you’re reading and how far you’ve got. You can put your page numbers in or a percentage count. You can recommend books to other people. They can recommend them to you, but it’s a good way of keeping you accountable on your book reading. So instead of just a vague,
‘Oh, I’d like to read more,’ at the end of the month, you can actually say,
‘Well, I read three books this month and I’ve shared two books with friends.’
It’s a very specific, measurable goal.
Another one, which is very relevant at the moment
‘I’m fed up of clutter. I’m going to do something about my clutter’
well the clutter will probably still be there in a couple of months time.
If that’s your way that you’re approaching it, if you’re a really driven person, then that might be enough to get you through, but I’m not.
I need goals and targets.
Instead of saying,
‘I’m fed up with clutter,’
I would change it’s maybe
‘Every week, I’m going to clear out a bag full of jumble / charity shop donations.’
It doesn’t have to be more specific. It could be
‘I’m going to empty one drawer a day,’ or
‘I’m going to empty one cupboard a week / one cupboard a month,’
or just something specific. But instead of
‘I’m just fed up with this clutter’ and it stressing you make some specific goals that as I say, SMART goals or SMARTER goals.
Let me know if this would help you and what you’re going to tackle, how are you going to change your goals to be SMART goals?
Obviously they can also apply in your business. You can find loads of advice about how they can apply in business.
Just to recap what SMART is. So if you’ve got a pen and paper
Specific,
Measurable,
Achievable,
Relevant,
Timely,
Exciting, and
Recognised, okay?
I really hope that that’s helped you because there’s nothing worse than feeling, just really stuck and not knowing how to get somewhere.
By going through just a few things that you’ve got on your to do list, or that you’ve got in the back of your mind and allocating these SMART goals, it can just move you forward.
Make you feel a bit more in control of things, which is great at the moment, because we’re just so sort of confused and mixed up and don’t really know where life’s heading from one week to the next.
Okay. So thank you for joining me in the outro. I think I asked you to share this podcast, but that’s all I’ll ask could be this week.
Please share my podcast with somebody that you think it will help and give value to.
I’m really trying to boost my viewing or listening figures.
It will be out on YouTube as well in the next few weeks. So keep an eye out.
I’m on social media, get in touch,
have a lovely day, stay dry in the rain and
I’ll catch you next time.
Bye.