SMART Goals Are Measurable

When you go about the business of setting your goals, you'll want to make sure that they're measurable. This means that you quantify the results you're looking for. For instance, your goal could be to increase sales. This goal is admirable, but it has no metrics associated with it. Therefore if you increase sales even by as little as one unit, you've succeeded! But I don't think you'd want to stop there (I could be wrong). Yesterday we discussed the process of specifying your goals more clearly. Adding meatrics is just another layer of specificity that should be applied to your goals.

Just a brief review from yesterday...

SMART Goals are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

Using yesterday's example of buying groceries, we can add metrcis by stating how much we need to purchase. I need to pick up a gallon of skim milk, one pound of ribeye and 2 large baking potatoes (yes, russets). If you want to increase sales, indicate by how much. Let's say we want to increase sales by 33% over the next year. This is a measaurable figure and therefore lends itself nicely to your action plan. It gives you the ability to calculate how many sales will be required for the year (to reach your desired 33% increase), which in turn can be broken down to more meaningful monthly and weekly sales goals. This gives you the yardstick with which you can measure your degree of success for any given week. If you haven't met your specific sales requirements for the week, you know that you'll need to increase your efforts the following week in order to make up the difference. Without making the goal measurable, you lose this important tracking system for your success.

Having metrics also let's you know if you're pushing yourself hard enough in your goal setting. Let's say your goal was to increase your sales by 10% and you hit your target before the end of the month every month. This simply means that you haven't set the bar high enough and you should really consider increasing the target in order to achieve even more for yourself this year. Yes, goals can be adjusted. In fact it's an important part of the achievement process.

If you're piloting an airplane and you set your goal to fly from Los Angeles to Honolulu, let's say you take off and set your bearings for the aloha state. Now you just kick back until you get there? I don't think so. You need to constantly monitor your progress, making sure that you're on track, and if you deviate from your desired course, you need to make the necessary adjustments to get the plane back on course in order to reach your destination. This evaluation is necessary for all goals and without metrics to give your goals the specificity of being measurable, your don't have the information you need to keep yourself on target. Keep your goals measurable and we'll talk about the rest of SMART goal setting as the week progresses.