If you’ve ever been disappointed in not achieving goals you set, this year, increase your chances of meeting them by making them SMART goals! SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound — important factors in helping you reach any goal. You also can create short- and long-term goals, and celebrate small successes while becoming more confident in achieving bigger goal(s).

How do you create a SMART goal? Let’s use an example to make it easier to understand.

You decide your goal is to exercise more in 2024. Great! But you need more than that to make it a SMART goal. Your first step is to make your goal specific. To do this, you need to decide what kind of exercise you want to do and how often you want to do it. Currently, you walk 30 minutes, three days a week. So your goal could be to exercise more days per week and walk 30 minutes, five days a week.

Perfect — your short-term goal is Specific and Measurable. You know your goal is Achievable, because you’re ready to increase the number of days a week you walk, and you know you have the time available to walk two more days each week. And it’s obviously Relevant, since you already walk regularly and know you want to increase your weekly exercise. There’s just one last step — making your goal Time-bound, which you can do by setting a start and end date. You decide you’ll start walking 30 minutes, five days a week for two months beginning next week. Now you have a SMART goal!

Once you achieve this short-term goal, evaluate how you feel with your increased weekly walking. If you’re ready, you can create another short-term goal of walking for longer periods of time or maybe introduce walk/run workouts. That might inspire you to set a long-term goal of being able to run a full mile at the end of six months. It’s all up to you! 

Start SMART

Creating SMART goals can help you achieve personal or professional milestones.
If you’re ready to welcome 2024 with some new goals, make them SMART!