SMART Goals: What They Are and How to Write Them

Goal setting is a useful tool for developing your career or personal skills. However, without a clear framework and action steps, actually reaching your objectives can be a challenge. SMART goals use five factors to help you establish targets you can realistically meet and help you establish a plan for doing so.

This style of goal setting was introduced in 1981 by George T. Doran, a former director of corporate planning and a consultant, in his article, ‘There’s a SMART Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives.’ It’s now a widely recognized tool for effective goal setting for businesses and individuals interested in career development or personal improvement.

SMART is an acronym that stands for:

• Specific: Goals should be specific and defined rather than vague. Instead of saying, ‘I want to read more books,’ a specific goal would be, ‘I want to read 15 books.’
• Measurable: It’s important that you’re able to measure your progress. This way, you can check-in during the process to ensure you’re on track to meeting your goal. Using the book example from above, you might check-in a month after setting your goal to see how many books you’ve read and make note of that number to help you structure an effective plan moving forward.
• Achievable: Make sure the goal you set is achievable. You want it to stretch your abilities and skills, but not be so out of reach that you won’t succeed within your given time frame.
• Relevant: Your goal should relate in some way to larger life plans. For example, you might note that five of the 15 books you read should relate to your career objectives.
• Time-bound: Set a deadline for reaching your goal. This helps you work backwards and assign smaller benchmarks to your plan to ensure you’ll reach your ultimate objective.

To write effective goals using the SMART method, follow these steps:

1. Consider your options

Think about your career objectives and what you need to achieve them. Choose a goal that develops your skill set and will help you reach new levels in your career. For example, let’s say you want to move from a team-based position to a team leader position.

2. Make it specific

Take your broad goal—seeking promotion to a leadership position—and make it specific. For this example, your goal might be to become a team leader on a large-scale project, overseeing a few employees.

3. Ensure it’s measurable

Make sure you can quantify the goal and track your progress as you proceed. Refine the language of your SMART goal to reflect this. The goal might become something like: ‘Promote to team leader on a large-scale project for a major client, overseeing at least four other employees.’

4. Think about the skills you need to succeed

Take stock of the skills you have and those you’ll need to develop to succeed. This will help you as you establish your benchmarks. For this goal, you probably already have strong communication and teamwork skills. You’ll need to develop decision-making skills and mediation skills to be an effective leader.

5. Make sure it’s relevant

Consider your long-term career goals. Ensure this specific objective will help you achieve success later in your career by building necessary skills and gaining valuable experience.

6. Set a deadline

Determine a deadline for your goal. Depending on what the goal is, this could be as specific as a date or as broad as a month or two. Avoid choosing too broad of a date, however, as that can keep you from taking the necessary steps to reach your objective.

For the promotion example, setting a month based deadline makes sense as it’s hard to know exactly when leadership opportunities might come up. The goal might look something like: ‘Promote to team leader on a large-scale project for a major client, overseeing at least four other employees, by the third quarter.

7. Establish benchmarks

The final step in writing your goal is to set up benchmarks to ensure you’re on track to achieve success. Work backwards from the deadline to see what you need to do by when to make it to your objective. Additionally, consider the skills you’ll need to develop to reach your goal. In the leadership example, reasonable benchmarks could include:

• Speaking with management about career goals
• Taking on decision-making responsibilities as a team member
• Volunteering for projects whenever possible
• Meeting with past team leaders for advice and guidance

Here’s are a couple examples of effective goals, which use all the components of the SMART acronym:

1. Publish an academic, peer-reviewed paper about my research on neurodevelopment in infants to increase professional awareness in the scientific community and build connections by the end of next year.

• Specific: An academic, peer-reviewed paper about my research on neurodevelopment in infants
• Measurable: Paper should be published
• Achievable: Research has already been performed
• Relevant: To increase professional awareness in the scientific community and build connections
• Time-bound: By the end of next year

2. Sign a contract with a major client in the sales pipeline for a year-long contract to increase our company’s capital and build our professional reputation by the fourth quarter.

• Specific: A major client for a year-long contract
• Measurable: Signed contract
• Achievable: In the sales pipeline
• Relevant: To increase our company’s capital and build our professional reputation
• Time-bound: By the fourth quarter