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Five primary areas for life goals means you can clarify your ideas, focus your efforts, use your
time and resources productively, and increase your chances
Y School and Career
of achieving what you want in life.
Y Family and Children

Y Health and What Does SMART Mean?
Y Financial SMART is an acronym that you can use to guide your goal
setting.
Y Personal
Its criteria are commonly attributed to Peter Drucker's
Goals & Objectives Management by Objectives concept. The first known use of
Some management academics would say that the difference the term occurs in the November 1981 issue of
between goals and objectives is that a goal is a description Management Review by George T. Doran. Since then,
of a destination, and an objective is a measure of the progress Professor Robert S. Rubin (Saint Louis University) wrote
that is needed to get to the destination. about SMART in an article for The Society for Industrial and
Organizational Psychology. He stated that SMART has come
In this context goals are the long term outcomes you (or to mean different things to different people, as shown below.
the organization) want/ need to achieve. More often than
not, these goals can be broken into objectives. Goals are To make sure your goals are clear and reachable,
often open and unstructured in nature. Goals can be fluid each one should be:
and are directional in nature.
Y Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
Y Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
Objectives tend to be single achievable outcomes. They are
concrete in statement and purpose. There is no ambiguity Y Achievable (agreed, attainable).
as to whether they have been achieved or not. Y Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-
based).
Goals:
Y Time bound (time-based, limited, time/cost limited,
1. I want to be the best musician in the school timely, time-sensitive).
2. We will be the number 1 supplier of….
Professor Rubin also notes that the definition of the SMART
3. I want to maintain a good knowledge of the profession
acronym may need updating to reflect the importance of
efficacy and feedback. However, some authors have
Objectives expanded it to include extra focus areas; SMARTER, for
1. We will sell xxx units by June next year. example, includes Evaluated and Reviewed.
2. I will pass my stage 3 business national assessment.
How to Use SMART
3. We will deliver 90% of the contract by
Paul J. Meyer, businessman, author and founder of Success
Motivation International, describes the characteristics of
Although this example is a very simplistic outline of a major SMART goals in his 2003 book, "Attitude Is Everything: If
life goal, it should give you an idea of how you can structure You Want to Succeed Above and Beyond." We'll expand on
big goals and work out the sub-goals that you need to his definitions to explore how to create, develop and achieve
achieve along the way.
your goals:
1. Specific
SMART Goals Your goal should be clear and specific, otherwise you
Many people spend their lives drifting from one job to won't be able to focus your efforts or feel truly
another, or rushing around trying to get more done while motivated to achieve it. When drafting your goal, try
actually accomplishing very little. Setting SMART goals to answer the five "W" questions:

"The keys to a healthy relationship are respect, appreciation, loyalty, and passion."

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