Are you struggling to accomplish your goals? Do you find yourself making the same resolutions year after year, only to break them a few weeks later? If so, you’re not alone. Many people have trouble setting and accomplishing goals. Even leaders and business owners struggle.
If you are a leader, remember that the first person you need to lead is yourself.
In this blog post, we will discuss how to set goals that actually get accomplished! We’ll talk about what makes a good goal, and we’ll provide tips for achieving your goals. Let’s get started!
As a leader, the first person you need to lead is yourself.
Why You Should Set Goals
Setting goals is essential to achieving success in any area of life. When you set goals, you are essentially putting your desires and intentions into writing. This can be extremely helpful because it allows you to track your progress and stay motivated. In addition, goals provide a sense of direction and purpose. They help you to stay focused and driven, and they keep you moving forward.
There are many reasons why you should set goals, but here are some of the most important ones:
1. Goals give you a roadmap to follow.
2. Goals keep you motivated and inspired.
3. Goals help you to stay focused and on track.
4. Goals give you a sense of accomplishment when achieved.
Setting goals also stretches you beyond your comfort zone. All progress and growth occur outside your comfort zone.
All progress and growth occur outside your comfort zone.
Do You Have Dreams or Goals?
The first step to setting goals that get accomplished is understanding the difference between dreams and goals. A dream is something you hope to achieve someday. It’s a vague aspiration, and it’s usually not something you can control. For example, “I want to be a millionaire” is a dream, not a goal. On the other hand, a goal is something you can achieve. It’s specific, measurable, and attainable. A goal also has a deadline. For example, “I will save $5000 toward a down payment on a house by December 31st” is a goal. As you can see, goals are much more actionable than dreams.
What are SMART Goals?
SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. They are a popular way to set goals because they help you to stay focused and on track. To create a SMART goal, ask yourself the following questions:
1. What do I want to achieve?
2. How will I know when I’ve achieved it?
3. Is this goal specific enough?
4. Is this goal measurable?
5. Is this goal achievable?
6. Is this goal relevant to my life?
7. Is this goal time-bound?
If the answer to all of these questions is yes, then you have created a SMART goal!
Most goal-setting systems stop there, but I take it a step further! I call this SMART-AR Goals.
What is a SMART-AR Goal?
Start by defining your SMART goal in writing. Then take two additional steps.
Accountability
Choose someone to be accountable to for your progress. This could be a spouse, friend, coach, etc. The key is to choose someone who will support and encourage you, but also hold you accountable.
Then, schedule regular check-ins with your accountability partner. This could be once a week, biweekly, or monthly. Depending on your goal, it could even be daily! During these check-ins, you will discuss your daily weekly progress, celebrate your successes, and troubleshoot any challenges you’re facing.
Reward
Write out how you will celebrate when you hit your goal. A written vision of what you will do or what you will become by doing this will keep you motivated. And, when you do reach your goal, don’t forget to celebrate!
By taking these two additional steps, you are much more likely to achieve your goals!
Dreams inspire, SMART-AR Goals make them a reality.
Examples of SMART-AR Goals
Sometimes starting from scratch can be difficult, so let’s take a look at two real-world scenarios that you can adapt to your own life.
Personal SMART-AR Goal Example
Suppose you want to begin a healthier lifestyle and lose some weight. Full disclosure, this is the exact process I used to lose 60 pounds!
Goal Aspiration: Begin Living a Healthy Lifestyle
Specific: I will lose weight by limiting my daily calorie intake to 2,000 per day and walking at least 10,000 steps per day.
Measurable: Lose 10 pounds as measured by my Withings Smart Scale
Achievable: Yes, I think this is possible. Others have already done it.
Relevant: Yes, because I am overweight.
Time-Bound: By December 31st, 2022 at 6:00 AM CST
Accountability: I will ask my wife, who already wants me to be more healthy to help me monitor my food intake.
Reward: I will take my family on a summer vacation to Hawaii where I will have the energy and fitness to hike challenging trails, go off the beaten path, and make memories for a lifetime.
Daily Plan of Action
Now that you have my SMART-AR Goal defined, it’s time to break it down.
If you want to lose weight, burn more calories than you eat. If you want to gain weight, eat more calories than you burn. It’s that simple.
One pound of fat is 3,500 calories. If you want to lose 10 pounds, that means you will need to eat 35,000 less calories by your deadline, 12/31/2022, at 6:00 CST.
If your deadline is 100 days away, then you need to divide that 35,000 calories by 100, which equals 350. This number represents your Calorie Deficit. This means that if you can eat 350 calories less than your body needs to maintain your weight, for 100 days, you WILL hit your goal.
So, how do you know how many calories your body needs to maintain a certain weight? This is measured by something called the Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), or Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Basically is tells you how many calories your body will burn if you stayed in bed all day.
Go to this website for a simple calculator: Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): Calculations and How to Use Them.
For example, if you are male, 5’10” tall, weigh 190, and 40 years old, your estimated calories burned is 2,445.
Here’s the simple formula for weight loss:
- BMR – Calorie Deficit = Daily Calorie Goal
- 2,445 – 350 = 2,095
- You can add back any calories you burn from extra walking or other activities you add to your routine. For simplicity, I have left those out here.
Now you can say to yourself, “If I will eat only 2,095 calories per day for 100 days, then I will lose 10 pounds by December 31, 2022, at 6:00 AM CST.”
How to Easily Measure Your Daily Calories
The easiest way I have found to measure my daily calories is MyFitnessPal. Another popular app is Lose It!
They both have web apps, but I use the MyFitnessPal mobile app for logging all my food. You can look up foods in a huge database that has basically everything you would ever eat at home or eat out. It even scans barcodes.
I either scan barcodes or weigh the food ninety percent of the time. For weighing, I use a kitchen scale, like this one, to measure. This may sound fanatical, but I’m serious about my health; plus…IT WORKS!!!
- Define your SMART-AR Goal. Be
- Break it down to daily activities
- Measure… I simply said I will not put something in my mouth before I log it in MyFitnessPal.
Accountability Partner Questions
Have your accountability partner ask you two questions:
- Did you log everything you put in your body?
- Did you hit 10,000 steps each day?
Even better, with MyFitnessPal and a Fitness tracker, you can automatically share your logs and activity with your accountability partner. This way there is no hiding.
I have an accountability partner that logs into MyFitnessPal and checks what I logged when he suspects I didn’t enter the right food or quantity! He wants to ensure I log the correct amount, exactly…down to the graham. Ang guess what? I know he’s watching!
Professional SMART-AR Goal Example
Goal Aspiration: Increase my income.
Specific: I will increase my income by selling more widgets by making cold calls.
Measurable: Earn $20,000
Achievable: Yes, I think this is possible. Others have already done it.
Relevant: Yes, because I could really use the money to replace my old car that keeps breaking down, causing me to miss work often.
Time-Bound: By December 31st, 2022 at 10:00 AM CST
Accountability: I will ask my best friend Tim to hold me accountable. We already talk multiple times a week.
Reward: I will purchase a new Ford Maverick truck that has a warranty and is very fuel efficient.
Daily Plan of Action
You earn $250 for every widget you sell. To earn an additional $20,000 you will need to sell an additional 80 widgets by your deadline.
Based on your previous performance, you know that you can sell one widget for every 10 doors you knock on or cold calls you make. 80 widgets times 10 cold calls = 800 cold calls/door knocks.
If you knock on an additional 800 doors by 12/21/2022 at 10:00 AM, you will sell an additional 80 widgets and make an additional $20,000.
If your deadline is 100 days away, and you have 800 cold calls to make, then 800 cold calls divided by 100 days = 8 additional cold calls per day.
If you simply make 8 additional cold calls per day, you will make the $20k needed to get your new car!
Accountability Partner Questions
Have your accountability partner ask you to present your daily written log of cold calls.
In Conclusion
Now that you understand how to set SMART-AR Goals that get accomplished, it’s time to put this knowledge into action! Pick one area of your life where you would like to set a goal, and use the tips in this blog post to create a SMART-AR goal.
Get a free copy of my GOAL TEMPLATE HERE.
I’d love to hear about your successes and your challenges.
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