Goals: A Roadmap to Success

Have you ever taken a trip without a route and a destination? For a while it is fun. The excitement of not knowing exactly where you're going or how you're going to get there can be a fun experience. But after a while, and it doesn't take too much time, Not having a destination and route can start taking the fun out of the party. Maybe not everyone wants to take the same road. Some people want to go north, some east. And others have absolutely no interest in seeing the world's largest ball of string. They'd rather see the Grand Canyon.

Going through life without goals is kind of the same thing. Instead of having markers to measure success and definite path, you bounce around like our wandering travelers, not quite sure of where you're going or how you're going to get there. Or worse, you've set a goal, but it's not achievable or realistic because you haven't figured out how you're going to do it.

So how do you come up with your map? Setting and planning to achieve goals isn't really that complicated, if you are SMART about it.

SMART is an acronym for a common-sense way of setting goals. Your chances of being successful go up with you follow the SMART principles.

Specific: The more precisely you define the goal, the better your chances of getting there. Consider the difference between these two goals. "I want to do well in school this year" versus "I want to get and maintain a B average in math." The first goal is vague. What does it mean to do well? Are you going from a D to an A? Is it increasing your grade by a specific number of points? And what is "doing well" for one person, might be not doing well for another. By contrast, the second goal is much more defined. You know what your school defines as a B (or you can find out), which means you also know how far away you are from that goal. The more specifically you can define your target, the better you will be able to plan how to get there.

Measurable: Consider our goal from above of doing "well" in school. Again, how do you measure "well"? For some people, getting a C in a particular subject is doing well. But that might not be your definition. The trouble lies in the fact that "doing well" is a subjective measure and each person – the student, parents, teachers, and guidance counselors – might define it differently. When all people involved aren't working from the same definition, things get messy. By contrast, consider the second goal: I want to maintain a B average in math. This is a measurable goal because the student will get grades. Using those grades, he can calculate what his average for the quarter is and evaluation whether or not the goal has been met.

Agreed Upon: Often, you need help to achieve your goals. Maybe, in the goal for a B math average, the student will need to go to an after school tutoring session at the local library. Attending this session means that someone needs to drive the student to the library, It might also mean that the student cannot participate in another after school club. Agreeing that these things have to be done, and who is going to do them (for example, who is going to drive to the library) is what it means to agree upon the goal. All of the people involved say, "Yes, this goal is important and here is who will be responsible for what to make it happen."

Realistic: This is, perhaps, the hardest part of goal setting. It's fine to say, "I want to participate in the Olympics" or "I want to be a New York Times best-selling author." But those are not really goals, or at least not realistic ones. If you are just starting out in gymnastics, getting on the next Olympic team is a low probability. You can write a great book, but a lot of writers never make the New York Times bestseller list. It is important to keep your goal in the realm of possibility. This cuts down on the likelihood that you will become discouraged when the goal is hard to reach. So in our math example, what is the student's current average? Is it a C? Then a B might be an achievable goal. But if the student currently has a D, setting a goal to get an A average might not be realistic, at least in the short term. A better, more realistic goal, might be raising that average to a C this quarter, and a B the next quarter. Remember, some goals at are unrealistic in the short-term become realistic when they are made longer-term goals, with smaller goals sprinkled in along the way.

Timely: How immediate is the goal. Is it "I want to get a B average in math some day" or "I want to get a B average in math next quarter." The latter has an immediacy that increases the level of urgency. In general, people are more likely to concentrate and work on a goal that is timely, meaning it's going to happen in the near term, than one that is years and years away.

So, maybe your child has set a goal and used the SMART system to define it. It's all down hill from here, right? Not necessarily. As you continue to work SMART, be on the lookout for the sneaky P's:

·       Procrastination: putting tasks off until later - "I'll study after this TV show."

·       Perfectionism: insisting that everything be without mistakes – "I only got a C on this quiz, so I've failed."

·       Pessimism: doubting that you'll be successful with your goal – "I'm stupid, I'll never get a B in math."

Watch out for those sneaky P's had help your child come up with ways to counter them.

Remember, going on a trip without a map and destination can be exciting, but not always fulfilling. It's much better to know where you're going (have goal) and know how you're going to get there (what actions you're going to take). The key is to work SMART.

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A software technical writer by day, Mary Sutton is the mother of two teens and has been making her living with words for over ten years. She is the author of the Hero’s Sword middle-grade fantasy series, writing as M.E. Sutton, and The Laurel Highlands Mysteries police-procedural series, writing as Liz Milliron. Visit her online at www.marysuttonauthor.com.