SMART failure

So, we've been talking about SMART goals. What do we do about goals that you fail to make?

Failing to make a goal is frustrating and can be discouraging but having a strategy to deal with setbacks gives hope. If you have a strategy then you have a systematic way of making your situation better. What if we use the SMART goal, itself, as a strategy for dealing with set-backs.

When you miss your goal, try to figure out if your original goal was lacking in one or more of the SMART goal qualities.

• Could your goal have been more specific? Did you get into trouble because you didn’t define what you wanted to do specifically enough? Did you have trouble staying motivated because the goal was someone else’s and not yours?
• Was your goal measurable? If not then there’s no way to know if you made it or not. Pick some variable that you want to change and operationalize it – that is, write down how you plan to increase or decrease the variable (how you will operate on it) and how you will measure it.
• Was your goal challenging-but-attainable or was it simply too large a leap?
• Was your goal based in reality or in fantasy?
• Was your goal properly time-bound? If your goal was too long-term then you might try setting goals to make smaller changes in your operational variable over a shorter time period. If your goal was open-ended then go ahead and set yourself a finish line in time.

Re-set a SMARTer goal, and go again!
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Don't forget the Call for Submissions for Carnival #5. The theme for this month is related to non-violent resolution of conflict.