Why Should You Set SMART Goals?

By Anne Shaw
The Hartford Small Biz Ahead
Originally Published: August 14, 2020 | Updated: December 7, 2023

What does every successful person, from an Olympian to a business mogul to a third-grader who aced her spelling test, have in common? They set a goal, and that goal served as a guiding post for their decisions and their training leading up to it.

But not all goals are created equal. How you go about identifying and setting goals affects whether you can achieve them just as much as your action plan does. Increase your chances of success by creating SMART goals.

What Are SMART Goals?

What is a SMART goal? When you set a SMART goal, you simultaneously build your plan for how to achieve it. How? SMART goals are designed in a way that provides a project structure with guidelines while also defining success and outlining exactly how to measure it.

SMART goals are a necessary part of small business management. When you create smart goals, they organize your project in such a way that you’ll not only uncover how to measure your project’s success but also what resources you’ll need and which steps to take along the way—a great way to start out.

Breaking Down the SMART Acronym

Before we jump into SMART goals examples and how to begin setting them up, let’s talk about why they’re called SMART goals (hint: it’s not just because it’s a smart thing to do). Each letter in the SMART goals acronym stands for one aspect of the goal that ensures it’s specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Smart, right?

Is for Specific When It Comes to SMART Goals

Using specificity saves us from creating nebulous goals that can be interpreted in a number of ways—ones that could easily be changed as the project moves forward, detracting from what we truly set out to accomplish. To make sure you’re creating a specific goal, consider the following questions:

• Who is needed?
• What will you accomplish?
• When do you expect the outcome to be accomplished?
• Which steps will you take along the way, and which obstacles will you need to overcome?
• Why should this be done? Why do others need to be involved? Why are certain steps essential?

SMART goals example: Jane wants to learn about email marketing. To set a specific SMART goal, she should first explain why she wants to learn email marketing, defining exactly what she wants to learn, and how she plans to achieve her new skills. Then she can research and make decisions about where she can find email marketing courses and when they start, who can teach her, when she should take steps to further her learning, which strategies and technology she may want to use, how she will practice, etc.

M for Measurable

If you can’t measure your success, then how will you know when you’ve achieved your goal? Planning for the M in SMART means identifying which metrics you’ll use to measure progress and how you’ll determine whether and when you’ve met your SMART goal…[MORE]

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To read the entire article by Anne Shaw at The Hartford Small Biz Ahead website, visit: Why Should You Set SMART Goals?