Setting Dates
One of the most important S.M.A.R.T. principles used with setting goals is the principle of making goals “timely.”
Without deadlines, it’s easy to let other priorities steer you away from your goal. A current crisis, potential opportunities, and other everyday occurrences can contribute to something called “oversight.”
Oversight is when you forget about your goals and necessary tasks associated with them because you’re focused on other issues.
Short term and long term goals, along with their accompanying deadlines, help to keep the overall plan in view and you on task.
Children have a favorite response when asked to do a task: “I’ll do it tomorrow.” As parents, we need to teach children how to do things in a timely manner so these unfinished tasks don’t add up to a mountain of a mess.
As adults with long term goals, we should know better than to put things off until tomorrow because sometimes tomorrow never comes.
Life gets in the way with kids’activities, work responsibilities, unexpected bills…the list of life’s distractions could go on and on. These distractions are what cause us to lose sight of our goals and desires.
Setting dates or deadlines for reaching your goals will help prevent this oversight and will help prevent future regrets about not following through on your goals.
So as not to be overwhelmed, follow these simple steps:
- Plan. Prepare a chronological list of all the short term goals you need to reach in order to accomplish a long term goal.
- Schedule. Grab a calendar and set dates for each short term goal.
- Assess. Pick a day once each month to review your progress and to assess if your dates are accurate.
- Now get to work!
Be realistic with your timelines to ensure that the short term or long term goals are attainable. On your assessment days, be honest with yourself about how much you’ve accomplished.
If you’ve fallen behind, allow yourself some extra time to accomplish each goal moving forward. If you’ve gotten ahead of the game, then you can either change the dates or surprise yourself by reaching your long term goal earlier than expected.
The key to this exercise is to move ahead with your plan instead of moving in the other direction. If your goals were neither attainable nor realistic, readjust and move on.
Schedule Time to Work on Goals
The process of setting goals takes time and information. Be sure you’re as informed as you can be about an issue or opportunity included in your goals.
For example, if your goal is to increase your client base, find out things like:
- The competition – Who are your competitors? What size client base do your closest competitors have? How healthy is your industry at this time?
- How long did it take you to develop your current client base? How long do you estimate it would take you to increase your client base by 10%? 15%? 25%?
- Is your level of revenue satisfactory according to your existing business plan? Are you covering current cost and revenue goals?
- How much would you like to increase your revenue by and how much would you need to increase your client base to achieve that revenue goal?
The questions listed above are the kinds of questions a business owner might ask as she sets goals for building up her client base.
Depending on your goals, your questions may differ, but the objective will be the same – to provide you with the most comprehensive understanding of the issues and realities you want to address when setting new goals.
If necessary, schedule time on your calendar to ensure you have a chance to work on these goals. Whether it’s a little everyday or just one day a week, make this appointment with yourself and don’t give yourself permission to cancel!
So often we get carried away with caring for others – our families or our clients – that we forget to allow time to care for ourselves and our life goals.
If you need to delegate some tasks in order to make time in your schedule, then do so. Hire an assistant to help with small business tasks or outsource some of your household chores so you can find the time to make your goals a reality.
Hire the kid next door to cut your grass or hire a cleaning person to clean for you every week or two. Hire a babysitter once a week to keep the kids occupied or be creative and barter babysitting time with another mother.
Don’t use lack of time as an excuse for not achieving your goals!
Not every goal has to be about work or career either. If you want to give your home a facelift this summer, that’s a valid goal towards improving your quality of life.
Follow the same steps for setting short term goals and dates. Make another list of any equipment or supplies you need for this home improvement project and schedule your work time on the calendar.
Reaching your goals takes time, and one of the greatest injustices you can do to your goal planning is to do it in a rush. Not only should your end dates be realistic, but allow yourself enough time to make your goals list and do whatever research is necessary so your list is accurate and up to date.
Equip yourself with enough information and time to develop S.M.A.R.T goals.
[Picture – Kelly Sikkema – Unsplash]
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