Do you consider yourself smart?
I mean, really. Do you think you’re smart?
I’m not referring to an IQ of 180 or acing the SATs or even graduating at the top of your class.
Well, let’s give you a little test to find out just how “Smart” you are.
Are you ready?
Today we’re going to re-visit your goals.
Over the last month, we have looked at where we are versus where we want to be. We have looked at our overall goals and what stands in our way of achieving them.
I’ve asked you to be brutally honest with yourself and to be strong enough to ignore your inner demons. I then asked you to own your truth. Really breathe it in and feel it because that truth is you.
With all of that work done and with the mindset that yes, I really do want to achieve my goals I do want to make that change, I do want to live a happier, healthier and more fulfilling life.
We are going to take another look at your goals to ensure that they are “Smart” goals.
Smart goals are:
S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Attainable
R: Realistic
T: Timely
Looking back at your goals, are they “Smart”?
Are you specific enough? Specificity speaks to clarity. Are you clear on your goals? Do you know what exactly it is you want?
Are your goals measurable? How do you measure goals?
I’m going to come back to this piece. It’s critical and demands a little more explanation.
Are your goals attainable? Are you goals even possible? This means that you are not setting yourself up for failure from the beginning by setting the bar too high.
Are your goals set in Reality? Realistic goals are different from Attainable goals because one speaks to the overall picture and one speaks to your particular time-frame.
Remember how I said that you’ll need to evaluate and re-evaluate over and over? This re-evaluation helps determine whether or not you are being realistic with your goals.
Are your goals given a timeframe? Are you specific in the end point you have given yourself in which to accomplish this particular goal? This is the timeliness of your goals.
*******
Let’s jump back to measurable goals.
How do we measure our goals?
If your goal is to lose weight, you can measure the progress of your goal by the number of pounds of body weight gained and lost as shown to you by stepping on the scale.
Easy, right?
When goals refer to something concrete, this is the simplest of all- pounds gained and lost; days spent exercising versus not; miles ran; pounds lifted; more money earned; more money saved and so on.
These goals are concrete.
What about the goals that aren’t?
Who doesn’t want to be happier
Well, how do we measure that?
It’s called the Circle of Life.
I’m not going to be breaking into any Lion King solos here, but take a moment to understand where I’m coming from.
Circles are round. We want circles to be round. When we use the shape of a circle and create a wheel out of it, we still want that wheel to be round.
Imagine this wheel had spokes and on each spoke was a different aspect of your life.
We have:
- Family Life
- Interpersonal Relationships or Social Life
- Romantic Relationships
- Career
- Religion or Spirituality
- Home Environment
- Education or Learning
- Personal Health
- Exercise or Movement
- Finances
- Creativity
- Joy or Happiness
- Food & Cooking
You could then take each of the above aspects or any other that I may have left out and rate them on a scale of 0 through 10 O being completely unsatisfied with where you are currently and 10 being blissfully satisfied and couldn’t imagine anything better.
Once you have rated each spoke of your wheel, check to see how round it is.
What do you see?
Where are you lacking and what is working well?
You can use this exercise to measure your non-concrete goals.
What do you think?
How is your wheel looking?
Roll on, the journey continues…
: )
