SMART vs. SMARTER Goals

Are You Setting SMART or SMARTER Goals?

As a business owner and entrepreneur, we need to include our goals for our business into our strategic plan. There are certain key elements to be included in our goals that will increase the likelihood of us taking the necessary action to accomplish our goals.

Those elements could be SMART or SMARTER. In this article, I will be describing the difference between SMART and SMARTER goals. 

Like many of you, I was more familiar with SMART goals than SMARTER goals. From my days of working in the school system as a school psychologist and special education director to working as a strategic business coach, I create SMART goals for myself and I help others create their SMART goals.

I also made sure to include time to evaluate the effectiveness of my actions to determine if I needed to make changes to my goal. 

By changes, I don’t mean that I took out certain steps so I would be able to say that I accomplished my goal. I mean that I used the evaluation process to determine if there was information that was no longer relevant or if I learned of new information that I needed to include as I completed the actions to accomplish my goal.

Then of course, there is this thing called life. When we write our goals and start to take action on those goals, we do not know what is going to happen to us in the future.

I remember a time when I felt so good about my goals I developed and the action plan that I created to help me reach those goals. My goals were specific. I knew the information I was going to be using to track my progress. My goals were doable, connected to what I wanted to accomplish, and I had my deadlines that I was going to get things done.

Then I started taking action on my plan for getting my goals, but when the due date came for my actions, I realized how much some life events had impacted my ability to make progress towards my goals. At first I felt a little sad about not being able to have done the things that I wanted to do by a specific time, but then I reminded myself of the importance of evaluating what I HAD completed and what new information was present.

That's when I made the necessary revisions that I needed. Followed that revised plan and I was able to accomplish my goals!

So what does that experience have to do with today’s topic of SMART versus SMARTER? I am going to explain right now by describing what are SMART goals and what are SMARTER goals.

What are SMART Goals?

SMART goals are:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic or Relevant

Time-bound

Let’s talk about each of these things.

1. Specific

When a goal is specific, it includes a verb or action word that states how you intend to achieve the thing that you want. It also includes stating the ‘what’ of the thing you want to accomplish. This thing that you want to get.

2. Measurable

Your goal must include the things that you will need to be tracking so that you can determine the progress that you are making towards your goal. Put another way, you are identifying your metrics.

3. Attainable

When you goal is attainable, it means that you have a goal that includes actions within your control that you can actually do. Your goals shouldn’t be so far beyond your reach that you feel like giving up because you believe that there is no way that you can achieve that goal.

4. Realistic or Relevant

You have to be real about your goal. Given all the things that you have going on in your business and in your personal life, will you be able to prioritize your time to realistically get the actions done that you must so that you can achieve your goal. Also, you have to think about if your goal is related to what you really want to accomplish.

5. Time-bound

Commit to yourself and your goal by putting a deadline on your goal. We must estimate the time that it will take to complete the goal. That might be a specific date or it could be a timeframe. 

Now let's look at what is needed for SMARTER goals.

What are SMARTER Goals?

We already covered what are SMART goals. So now I’m going to share about the 'E' and 'R' to make your goals SMARTER.

Evaluate

Taking action is great, but we need to be evaluating our actions to ensure that we are making the progress that we desire. A key with the evaluation step, is that we need to determine how often we will be evaluating our progress towards our goals.

Readjust

So sometimes with have to make some revisions and do some readjustment. Please know that readjusting does not mean that you are writing that goal off or getting rid of it. The readjustment or revising process helps us to identify if we are experiencing the same challenge or barrier each time we take action. Then we can identify how we will overcome that problem.

When we evaluate our goals and make the necessary revisions, it helps us to stay focused on our goals and increases the likelihood that we will finish the actions that we must take to accomplish our goals.

By the way, in your research, you might come across other variations of the ‘E’ and the ‘R’. When you do, you will need to determine which variation will help you to achieve your outcomes.

Why Should You Care About the Difference Between SMART and SMARTER Goals?

The reason you should care about the difference is because one might increase your chances of ACTUALLY accomplishing your goal.

SMARTER goals help us with identifying possible barriers to our progress and allow us to identify ways that we can overcome those barriers and still accomplish those goals.

SMARTER goals can also help with increasing your motivation to take action towards your goals.

Now you know the difference between SMART and SMARTER goals. If you need help with creating your SMART or SMARTER goals in your business, consider working with a business coach. 

If you are ready to get help with creating SMART or SMARTER goals, submit your coaching application and see if you qualify for a customized coaching program to meet your specific needs.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article.

Regards,

Dr. Priscilla "Dr. P" Kucer

Solutions+Actions=Results! (SoAR!)