Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Time bound
To achieve any goal you should have a Mind Action Plan and make your goals SMART.
Specific behaviors
Instead of focusing on a static outcome, focus on what you (or your customer) will be able to DO as a result of achieving your goal. Visualizing behavior causes the neural circuits in the brain to be 60-90% as active as doing the task!
Focusing on static outcomes (like a picture of your ideal house or you ideal body) can actually de-motivate you. When you think of an specific outcome your brain partially thinks that you’ve already achieved the outcome, reducing your desire to do the work needed to realize your goal.
When you focus on specific behaviors you can see the gap between you are ultimately want to do and what you currently do This gap motivates you to take action day after day.
When focused on behavior you can easily determine which habits and routines you need to develop in order to be successful. You can make consistent progress on your goal when you develop habits and routines that make the work seem effortless and automatic - which removes the need for motivation/willpower each time you want to advance your goals.
The best way to form a habit is to think of a specific cue (time, existing habit, location) and a specific starting sequence: “When I ____, Then I will do ____”.
Measurable feedback against a baseline
To initially stay motivated you need proof that you are making meaningful progress. Without a baseline to measure your effort against, you can never be sure that you are making meaningful progress. By clearly identifying a baseline you make it much easier to gauge your level improvement - a key contributor to happiness while pursuing goals.
Your baseline could be a previous attempt, a previous project, a competitor's product or an initial estimate.
Achievable...barely
While working on your goal you need to stay in the ‘flow channel’ (term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi): a mode of execution that requires a skill level 4% beyond your current skill level. Four percent can be hard to gauge. To get in the flow channel simply focus on staying slightly outside your comfort zone.
Having a goal that stretches you too far might be exciting at first, but it eventually lead to frustration and overwhelm.
Doing something that is entirely within your capacity is not challenging enough to motivate you (the major problem with most S.M.A.R.T. goals). Working on goals that are entirely ‘achievable’ leads to procrastination and suboptimal effort.
Relevant to the ultimate person you want to become
The goals must be of your own choosing and they must be aligned with who you ultimately want to become. If you can align your goal behavior with your ultimate behavior you make the goal intrinsically rewarding and highly desirable.
As Arnold Schwarzenegger says: “Dig deep down and ask yourself ‘who do you want to be?’ Not what, but who.”
Routinely identify the path between your current goal and WHO you ultimately want to become in your daily life (think of your well-being, relationships and productivity/creativity).
Time-restricted work intervals
Short time intervals are at the core of a project management method called Scrum. In Scrum, a project team conducts a short work Sprint (1-2 weeks) and then demonstrates the results of the work Sprint to the end user. When a project team is forced to demonstrate their work after short intervals it allows them to gather more feedback and it prevents the team from going too far off track.
Teams who use the Scrum often discover that the end user rarely knows exactly what they want from the onset of the project and they constantly revise their goals as they see and test partial products. The same is true for your goal - you may not realize exactly what you want until you get a tangible result in front you. Therefore, you must restrict yourself to deliver preliminary products sooner than you would like to.
In Scrum, work Sprints are never longer than 20% of the total project length. Why? According to the 80/20 Principle, 80% of the value comes from just 20% of the effort. If you restrict yourself to a 20% time interval (based on the initial estimate to reach your goal), you are forced to find 80% of the expected benefit of your goal at the beginning of your goal pursuit.
Super tight time-constraints force you to be selective and creative. Hollywood producer and director Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) says: "I want all my movies to not have enough money or enough time so that I’m forced to be more creative".
Effortless minimum requirement
It is helpful to lower your productivity requirements. If you lower requirements for what you consider a ‘productive work session’ you are more likely to engage work sessions that advance your goal.
Why?
When you plan out your goal you have the best intentions for your future-self but fail to consider how the current-self will feel each time he/she needs to take action. When you set the minimum requirement too high (i.e. go to the gym and work out for 90 minutes every day) you become overwhelmed and search for the easiest, most pleasurable alternative (i.e. sit on the couch and eat doritos). Make something easy if you want to take consistent action.
Examples:
- Want to be a better golfer? Make the daily minimum requirement simply to pick up a golf club and swing it once. Any additional swings are a bonus.
- Want to get stronger and fitter? Make the daily minimum requirement simply to do 1 push-up. Any additional push-ups are a bonus.
Here is the dirty little secret: you rarely just do the minimum. Eighty percent of anything is starting. Once started you find it easy to continue. Everything beyond an initial requirement is considered a bonus - which leads to a higher feeling of accomplishment after you complete bonus reps.
Response plans
When planning your goal you must consider the things that will distract you and take you off course. No matter how perfect your plan is distractions and excuses will inevitable take you off track if you don’t plan for them.
When you identifying excuses and distractions come up with a ‘counter-action’ plan: “When ___ occurs then I will do ___”.
Mentally rehearse counter-action ‘when-then’ plans as often as you visualize a positive result. Visualizing the positive and negative aspects of your goal is called mental contrasting. There is over 20 years of research to prove that mental contrasting is a highly effective method to achieve your goals (see ‘Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation’ by Oettingen, G.).
When I travel I am much more likely to eat unhealthy, which prevents me from reaching my health goals. I need to recognize that when I travel I will be tempted to eat unhealthy and I need to come up with a response plan. My most common response plan is to drinking from a bottle of water each time I am tempted by a delicious treat.
That’s it - a roadmap for developing S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goals!
When you use the S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goal setting method you leverage the latest science on behavioral change and give yourself the highest odds of success.
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