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While goal setting tools can be helpful, you have to first know how to create the right goals to make a difference in your life. The most effective of these goals happen to be the so-called SMART goals, and you can find tools specifically designed to help you write, manage, and track these goals more easily.
What are SMART Goals?
Before you start using your goal setting tools, you want to know what SMART goals are and why they are different from ordinary goals. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. These are all key components of the goals you should be setting.
Let’s say you have a goal to buy a home someday. That’s not a SMART goal. Instead, you would write a goal, such as “I want to buy a home in the suburbs by the time I am 25” or “I want a vacation home in Turks and Caicos by 2015.” These goals say specifically what type of house you want to buy. They also have a deadline. Now whether or not they are obtainable depends on your current situation. If you’re jobless and living with your parents in 2013, the vacation home is probably not attainable, for example.
Why SMART Goals Matter
While these goals don’t have to only apply to your career, that’s where most of the research on their effectiveness has been done. One study of business graduates ten years after they earned their diploma looked at the students’ current earnings and their goal setting habits. Not surprisingly, most students didn’t have any goals. Those who did have goals but not SMART goals (only 14% of the total) earned three times more, on average, than the rest of the students.
Only 3% of students followed the acronym when setting their goals, but they were earning ten times more than the rest of the pack. Clearly, setting realistic and well thought out goals can have a big impact on your success.
Getting Started
First, you might want to check out the goal setting tools available on the Internet which can help you start putting these SMART goals together. It might help you to brainstorm a list of all the things you would like to achieve in your life. Make a list and convert the realistic ones into very specific, deadline-oriented goals.
The Importance of Attitude
One of the reasons SMART goals are effective is that writing them requires you to have a positive attitude about what you can accomplish in life. You can’t put a deadline on something that you don’t think is ever going to happen. But you have to temper that positive attitude with realistic expectations. Don’t set yourself up for failure with pie-in-the-sky dreams. For example, if you don’t have a lot of basketball talent, don’t make a goal to become a basketball star for the Chicago Bulls by the time you’re 23.
Keep your goals realistic and keep your efforts focused on obtaining them if you want to be successful.
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