For many in business, it’s a natural time to think about plans for the coming year and decide on the things that possibly need to be done differently.
It’s common that we aspire to fairly grand ambitions at this time only to reach the end of the year and discover very little has changed.
Often, the key reason for the lack of movement is that there wasn’t a ‘SMART’ goal in place.
Most of us during our career will at some time have come across the acronym SMART for goal setting and yet only 1% of the UK population regularly set themselves SMART goals.
I can’t overemphasise how big a difference having a SMART goal makes to whether you achieve the things you want or not. If you think about the achievements in life you’re most proud of, the chances are you’d have started with a SMART goal.
First, it’s worth summarising what SMART stands for:
Specific – What will be different when you’ve achieved your goal? How are you going to achieve it? Why is it important that you achieve it?
Measurable – To check if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as: How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?
Achievable – This is very subjective and is about whether you believe your goal is realistic or not. If you truly believe that it can be achieved then you’ve passed the acid test. If you don’t believe it can be accomplished, ask yourself whether you’re being too ambitious and if the answer is yes then change your goal to something more manageable. Another way to test achievability is to ask yourself whether you’ve achieved something similar in the past?
Realistic – Question yourself. Is this goal ‘do-able’? Am I taking on something I’m not qualified/resourced/skilled enough to accomplish? At the same time, it must not be too easy, so you need to ensure there is a fair degree of ‘stretch’ when setting your goal. That means you’ll be far more satisfied when you’ve achieved it.
Time bound – Without a hard delivery date there’s a danger that things can drift, procrastination sets in and then nothing changes.
For very large projects or long-term goals it is well worth breaking these up into chunks or bite-size pieces.
For example, the SMART goal “To increase banked commission and fees in 2011 by £50,000” is an objective that requires lots of smaller sub-goals that may relate to marketing, prospecting, referrals, exams, time management, administration, compliance etc.
As this is a 12-month goal, it’s vital to break it down into short-term bites which may be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly etc. That way you’ll know if you’re on track throughout the year and a task that seemed daunting will look far more achievable.
For instance, which seems more manageable: ‘Write £50,000 additional revenue during 2011′ or ‘See two new referrals each week’?
If you’ve got this far and you want to improve the probability of achieving your goals even further, I’d suggest turning your SMART goal into an affirmation.
An affirmation is a carefully crafted statement that’s best read a least three times a day. It needs to be in the present tense about your goal as if it has already been achieved and it also has to be positive, personal and specific.
If we look at the previous example, the affirmation might be: “It is 31 December 2011 and I have successfully banked an additional £50,000 of revenue.”
The reason why the affirmation works is that it taps into the energy and drive from your creative subconscious. This is the part of the mind that pictures the way things are, it provides balance, it problem solves and it gives us energy to get things done.
This type of technique is used extensively in some way or another by elite sportspeople when working with sports psychologists. The athlete will spend a lot of time visualising their goal; the creative subconscious, in its drive to maintain balance, works to provide the energy and drive necessary to balance the vision with the reality of winning.
So, if you want to turn those ‘if only’ thoughts into reality, have a go at ‘SMARTening’ up your goals and you might surprise yourself with what you achieve.
Peter Welch is head of sales and distribution at Bridgewater Equity Release
