I heard from a number of readers about crafting SMART goals. Remember SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. Have you taken time to craft your goals for the new year? I think it’s hard to set aside enough time to do a good job at these. I’ve made progress on some of my goals and want to share some tips to help you make progress towards attaining yours.

• Review your goals daily. I think the best time is first thing in the morning, so it sets your day off on a positive note. It’s also a good idea to review them again at night. Try visualizing the goal as already completed and yourself enjoying the rewards of completion.
• “Chunk” down the goal into small steps. That’s how any goal is actually achieved, with small steps. And a large goal doesn’t look overwhelming when you’ve broken it down. You could use a “mind-mapping” technique to accomplish this.
• Take five steps toward completion of your goal each day. Again, they don’t have to be big steps, just something that moves you towards your goal. The small steps compound.
• Ask yourself if what you are doing moves you closer to or further from your goal. If it moves you closer, you are on the right track. If not, you need to rethink your decision. The difference between action and activity is movement towards the achievement of your objective.
• Share your goals and action steps with a coach or friend who can keep you on track. I have a mini-Mastermind group with one friend and this helps both of us move forward on our goals.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes on goal setting, “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.” Michelangelo

The Winter issue of The Professional Quilter includes an article on goal setting using the SMART method. If your subscription is not current and you need to renew, or you want to start a new subscription, here’s a link to our order page.

Tags: Business planning, goals

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.