Improving the S.M.A.R.T. Goal Acronym

This video clip about SMART goals is from a goal setting presentation I gave to the Job and Career Program at the Russell Library in Middletown, CT.

The SMART goal system is a great way to define and clarify your goals – but I believe that the traditional definition of SMART goals may actually be holding you back and keeping you from achieving your big goals and dreams. But by making a simple change, you can improve your chances of success.

If you want to change your life for the better, you have to take away all limits to your success. Don’t limit yourself by insisting that your goals be realistic. Where would the world be if everyone stuck to ‘realistic’ goals?

Stretch yourself!

Reaching your goals on time

Reaching your goals on time is probably important to you. I know it is for me. You want something and you want it by a certain time. (Usually right now! or at least pretty fast!) You don’t want to wait and wait to reach your goals, but that is exactly what happens when you fail to follow one of the guiding principles of goal setting.

You see, there are two schools of thought when it comes to goal setting and manifesting your desires. On one side are the advocates of an inner approach to goal setting – these methods are usually all about aligning with your desires and then waiting for them to manifest or show up in your life. On the other side are the external methods of goal setting – a more straight forward approach that involves linear thinking and taking specific action steps to produce specific results.

Both methods work, but neither method works for everyone all the time.

Why is this? What does work all the time? Well, I’m sure you won’t be surprised when I tell you that the only true way to ensure your success at reaching your goals is to blend both the inner and outer methods into one complete process. You can’t really separate the inner you from the outer you anyway, so your best approach is always to work with your total self.

If we are, as so many of the great teachers say, spiritual beings having a physical experience, then it only makes sense that we should tap into as much of our internal power and energy as possible. But at the same time, we are existing in a physical reality, and in that reality, time is a an important factor.

That’s why you have to approach the idea of reaching your goals from a perspective that includes both your inner and outer worlds. That means not only should you begin to set concrete goals and develop specific action steps that will move you in the direction of what you want, you also should look inward and work on things like your beliefs, your self-talk, and your intentions.

If you are struggling to reach one of your goals, it might be because you are focusing your efforts too much on one side or the other. Either you are being too inner focused or too outer focused. Try to see where you have been placing your attention lately. Have you been working hard on a lot of ‘inner’ stuff? Or have you been driving yourself by being heavily invested in external goal setting?

Whichever you have been favoring, try spending a little more time on the other side. I think you will find that as you begin balancing your efforts between your inner and outer strengths you will discover that reaching your goals becomes a little easier and a lot more enjoyable!

Your ultimate life begins with goal setting!

Are you a goal setter or a goal achiever? Do you reach your goals in life quickly and easily? Or do you struggle when you try to make changes in your life?

Creating changes in your life – especially big ones – can be challenging. When struggle occurs, when it feels like nothing you do is working and your goals seem out of reach, it is easy to find something or someone to blame for the way things are going.

But if you really want to create change in your life, if you really want to achieve your goals, (especially those big ones!), then you must do two things.

First, you have to stop playing the blame game and decide to take control of your life.

And second, you must get good at setting goals. One of the basic principles of success in life is that you have to know exactly what you want in order to get it. Do you know exactly what you want?

It isn’t enough to have a vague notion about what you want, it isn’t enough to wish or hope that things will get better or that your luck will change. To live your best life, you have to know what you want your life to look like. This is the first step toward becoming a goal achiever.

Just as the process of becoming a chef first requires learning to cook, becoming a goal achiever requires you to first become a goal setter. What is a goal setter? A goal setter is a person who sets goals. It sounds elementary, but in reality, the reason that so many people struggle to reach their goals is simply that they don’t actually set goals in the first place. They tend to have lots of wishes and dreams, but they never take those dreams and make them real by turning them into concrete goals that they can work toward.

You can start changing your life right now by setting a few very real goals for yourself. Pick one or two things that you want to have or do. Write them down on paper.

Next, and this is important, you must then create a plan to achieve those goals. Without a plan of action you will wind up wasting a lot of time and energy by doing things that don’t produce the results that you want. So look at what you want and figure out what you have to do to get it. Ask for help if you need it, but learn what you have to do to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Then and only then should you begin taking actions that move you toward your goals. This is the only way to get the rapid results that you truly want.

You can become a magnificent goal achiever, you can create the life that you want, once you get good at goal setting. Like any other skill, the more you exercise your goal setting muscles the better you will become and the faster you will see changes take place in your life!

Choosing your goals isn't always easy!

You would think that choosing your goals would be easy, right? After all, you know what you want. You know what you want your life to look like.

The problem is that most of us have many, many wants and desires, and it can be hard to decide which ones to work on. We want so much, in so many areas of our lives, that it can feel overwhelming!

Some people get stuck right here in the goal setting process, because with so many desires they wind up feeling helpless and don’t make progress toward any of their desires. Other people try to do everything at once – they try to transform their entire life overnight – and they wind up crashing and burning because they spread themselves to thin.

Choosing your goals, deciding which of your wants and desires to focus on right now, doesn’t have to be a painful process. Not if you approach the process with your end result in mind.

What is your end result? Your end result is what you want your life to look and feel like tomorrow and the next day and every day after that. Imagine your life so complete in every way that you can’t think of a single desire… that is your desired end result!

So to get there, to reach the life that you envision for yourself, you must start somewhere. I always recommend that you begin with the goal that, when you reach it, will make the biggest difference in your life. The goal that you feel the strongest about.

The goals that you choose to reach first will be the goals that you have the strongest reason WHY for. Because ‘why’ you want to reach a goal has a tremendous affect on whether or not you actually reach that goal. A strong reason ‘why’ you want to achieve your goal will always motivate you to do more, to take more action, and to keep going when life throws challenges in your path.

Don’t allow yourself to get stuck when choosing your goals. Here is a simple goal setting exercise that will help you. Make a list of those things that you want to achieve, then next to each one write the reasons why you want to reach that goal. Ask yourself what reaching that goal will mean in your life. Do this for each of the things that you wrote down. Which of your goals resonates with you the most deeply? Which are you the most passionate about reaching?

Those are the goals you should be making plans to achieve first!

Of course, choosing your goals is just the first step, but as the saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  Take that step today! Choose your goals and start creating the life that you truly want!

Want to reach your goals? Start showing up for your own success.

Goal setting has become more and more common, and while this is good because it means that more and more people are taking an active role in their personal success, unfortunately for many of those people, actually reaching goals hasn’t gotten any easier.

That is because success of any kind, whether it is reaching your goals or just finding happiness in life, depends a great deal on you showing up and being present in your life.

If you are still struggling, still trying to reach your goals, but still hitting roadblocks, you are probably getting frustrated. That frustration is keeping you from success. It’s a vicious cycle, but one that you can break free of.

It starts by showing up for your own success.

Sometimes, and I have been guilty of this myself, it is easy to get caught up in the day to day drudgery of your current life. You get so busy dealing with problems and going through the same mess over and over, that you find yourself slipping further from your goals rather than making progress. Things seem to keep going downhill no matter what you do.

Opportunities slip by you. You feel disconnected from your goals and dreams.

To change that, to start living the full and exciting life you know you deserve, you simply have to open up your mind and decide to be present.

Being present means taking an active role in your life, rather than drifting along on autopilot.  It means being consciously aware of what is really going on in your life. It means participating.

Most of the time, the success you want doesn’t come from a single, big scary action that you have to take. It comes from the small, daily habits that you perform. The ones you don’t think about. Those are the ones that will change your life. Those are the ones that will make a difference.

But if you are not present, if you are not conscious of those things you do, chances are pretty good that you will miss out on a lot that life has to offer. It is like going through life with blinders on.

To be more present in your life will take a conscious effort, at least at first. But the more you open yourself up and allow yourself to participate in your life rather than watch it roll by, the more you will gain in the long run.

If you are serious about learning how to reach your goals, then being present in your life and taking an active role in your own success will help you in ways that you can’t even imagine!

How to Reach Your Goals

Reaching your goals – how fast you reach them, and how completely they manifest in your life – depends a lot upon your decision making skills. Every step of your journey from where you are to where you want to be, (your goals), is filled with decisions of every size and level of importance.

Goal setting and goal achievement doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. Once you understand what it takes to go from setting a goal to actually achieving your goal, you will see that a lot of it revolves around the decisions you make all day, every day.

The better you become at making good decisions the sooner your dreams and goals will materialize in your life!

Your goal setting checklist!

Learning how to set goals – real goal setting that produces rapid results – isn’t difficult, it only seems that way – mostly because it is so easy to confuse ‘setting your goals’ with ‘achieving your goals’.

It is easy to confuse the action with the result.

Achieving your goal is a result, a result of all the actions you took that moved you in the direction of that goal. Sometimes it only takes a few actions to reach a goal, other times it takes many actions – sometimes repeated over and over – to achieve your goal.

But no matter how big your goal is or how many actions it will take to reach it, the very first action that you have to take is to SET A GOAL.

Setting your goal is an action. It is the most important action because if you mess up here, you will probably struggle to reach your goals.

In order to improve your life, in order to manifest or create those things that you want, you have to set strong, powerful goals. Nothing in your life will change until you decide to change it by setting goals and then taking action to reach those goals.

Here is a goal setting checklist to help you get the most out of your effort:

1. Know what you want.

Do you know what you want? Are you sure?

The more you know about your goal or dream, the more details and the more specific you are about it, the better your chances are of actually getting what you want. You wouldn’t walk into the supermarket and let some stranger fill your shopping cart with random items, would you? No, you pick and choose those things that you want. Your life is the same way. You have to pick and choose exactly what you want.

2. Commit to reaching your goal.

Are you committed to reaching your goal?

When you are fully committed to creating a change in your life, you tap into great reservoirs of strength that lie hidden within you, just waiting for you to use.  You find yourself willing to go the extra step, to do more, to risk more, to grow more. But this only happens if you commit yourself.   Don’t set goals that you are not committed to achieving. You will only waste your time and energy and find yourself frustrated and stuck.

3. Be willing to take action every day.

Are you willing to take real action every day?

Action is the engine that powers the creation process. The more specific actions that you take towards your goal, the faster you will get there. Reaching a goal is a journey, each step carries you closer and closer to your desired result. The more actions you take and the more often that you take them, the faster and easier it becomes to reach your goal. If you only work on your goals on the weekends, or only when you feel like it, or only when the sun is shining, it will take you infinitely longer to see your goals realized. Taking action every day though, will build momentum, which will increase your effectiveness and allow you to get the rapid results that you want.

How are you doing on your goals?

Are you clear on what you want? Are you committed to achieving your goals? Are you willing to take action every day?

Great! Then you are on your way to becoming a master goal setter. As you get better at setting goals, you will get better at achieving goals and the better you will be able to create the life and the lifestyle that you truly desire.

One of the big questions around the law of attraction is whether goal setting helps you or gets in your way as you manifest your desires. Michael Losier talks about this in this short video.

You can see that it is easy to get sidetracked when you begin talking about your goals. It can seem hard to let go of your desires when you are busy ‘counting’ and seeing how close you are to your goal.

But don’t give up on goal setting just yet.

Every desire of yours is in fact a goal. And a goal, by its very definition is something that you have not attained yet, something that you want, but that you don’t yet possess.

But the law of attraction teaches us that we should not focus on those things that we don’t have, that we shouldn’t focus on the areas of lack in our life.

So what are we to do?

Well, as Michael said in the video, goals are good for defining and clarifying our desires, but once you set a goal you must let go of it. To be in synch with the law of attraction you must live and breath as if you already possess the thing you seek.

Do that and you will find yourself reaching your goals with a lot less effort than you dreamed possible!

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Your Success Coach,
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

]]> http://bobcrawfordonline.com/growingyourself/2010/06/27/sunday-law-of-attraction-video-michael-losier-does-goal-setting-help-or-hurt/feed/ 4 http://bobcrawfordonline.com/growingyourself/2010/01/09/how-to-set-goals-4-ways-to-attract-success-and-manifest-abundance/ http://bobcrawfordonline.com/growingyourself/2010/01/09/how-to-set-goals-4-ways-to-attract-success-and-manifest-abundance/#comments Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:43:11 +0000 Bob Crawford http://bobcrawfordonline.com/growingyourself/?p=424

How to set goals to attract success and manifest abundance.

Here we go! Another year, another wonderful series of opportunities for you to reach out and claim your dreams!  Yes, it’s goal setting time!

No matter what happened in your life last year, no matter what challenges you faced, or what your results were, you CAN make this year a fantastic year!

You can make this the year that you attract the success you desire, the year that you manifest the abundance you crave!

The key is in your mindset!

Master your mindset and you will no longer be wondering HOW to create your best year ever… you will be LIVING your best year ever!

The truth is that much of your ability to attract success or manifest abundance in your life begins and ends with your mental attitude. Which means that if you are struggling with success or abundance or anything else you are trying to create in your life, the solution to your challenge lies in your mindset as well.

Here are 4 tips from the Inner Circle Success Library to help you set goals that will empower you to attract success and abundance:

1. Define Your Dream – Every goal you set, every dream you pursue should be crystal clear in your mind. The more defined and detailed your dream, the more powerful your manifesting ability becomes. You should know every last detail of your dream or goal.
2. Write It Down – Do you remember the last 5 great ideas that you had? You would if you had written them down! Get in the habit of writing down everything – your goals and dreams, your to-do lists, your brilliant ideas, your silly ideas… Get them down before they disappear.
3. Take Action Every Day – There is something you can do everyday to move you closer to your dreams. Remember, even small actions can produce tremendous results! Especially on those days when you ‘don’t feel like it’!! Do something every day!
4. Be Bold – Go after your biggest dream. Doing anything less weakens you and lessens your power to focus. If you are not going after your biggest dream it will hang over your head dragging you down… whatever excuses you create to justify not pursuing that dream will weigh on you and influence all of your decisions and actions. Either move towards your big dream, or set it aside and free up the energy and attention you devote to it.

Start today, right now, and you can begin creating a life of success and abundance. Learning how to set goals doesn’t have to be a scary process. The most important thing is to get those dreams down on paper so you can work with them and begin planning to attract success!

Peace,

Bob Crawford
Success Coach, Speaker
and creator of Growing Your SELF!

p.s. Inner Circle of Success members are diving into this topic this month with in-depth training and support. To learn how you can get the same advantage and supercharge your goal setting and attraction abilities simply click here: http://www.bobcrawford.info

p.p.s. You should also grab your private copy of the free success building reports I’m giving away over at http://www.growingyourselfcourse.com

Decide to Succeed!

Are you clear about the direction you are heading in? Or are you simply taking whatever life throws at you? If you find yourself struggling everyday you are probably stuck in the first step of the manifesting process, which is deciding exactly what you want your life to look like.

Now, you might say that deciding what you want is not the problem, you know what you want… you are just having a hard time getting it to manifest in your reality, but the truth is that knowing what you want is not the same as deciding what you want.

We all have dreams. We all have wishes. We all have desires. But none of those will become a reality for you if you don’t decide to make those dreams real, if you don’t decide to change. It is the decision to focus on your goals and move toward them that changes them from wispy dreams into solid reality.

But that’s not the end of the battle, is it? You have probably decided to reach out toward several dreams and even though you have made the decision, you’ve decided that this is what you want, you can still struggle to make those dreams real. You can still find yourself faced with obstacles and roadblocks that make you doubt your ability to actually make this happen.

How can this be?

It happens because getting clear about the changes you want to make, in other words, deciding what you want, is not really one decision, it is actually two separate decisions.

The first is a decision to move toward a specific goal. This is where you’ve narrowed down your desires and chosen a particular dream that you want to create. This is the decision that gets written about and talked about all the time. Decide what you want, decide what you want, decide what you want… unfortunately, that’s not enough.

The second decision in the process is the important one. This is the step that gets left out and causes you so much grief and struggle. The second decision is when you decide to make the changes necessary to bring your goal to life.  You see, it’s one thing to decide to lose weight, it’s another to decide to change your eating habits or alter your beliefs about eating.

It’s easy to decide what you want. What causes you struggle is your resistance to the changes you need to make.

Every new thing that you bring into your life, every new part of your being that you want to express, requires you to change.  YOU.  Not the world, not your neighbors, not those annoying people in your life… YOU have to change.  You have to decide that the changes you want are worth the effort. This is what throws many people off track. They decide what they want, but they are unwilling to change anything in their life to get it.

One of the biggest misconceptions about self improvement is that once you learn the process you can have everything you want in life. That’s what all the books and movies tell you, right?

WRONG.

You can have anything you want in life, but you can’t have everything at once. Many of your desires are actually at odds with each other, and if you try to have both in your life at the same time you wind up feeling blocked and you meet with mountains of struggle.

Let’s stick with the weight loss example. You may decide that you want to lose weight, that may be an important goal that you want to create.  But at the same time you find yourself unwilling to change your eating habits, or your exercise, or even the very thoughts that you have about food. This unwillingness to change is at the heart of your struggle. This is true regardless of your goal.

The solution is simple, but one that you might find yourself having a hard time committing to. You have to prioritize your wants and desires and see which ones are most important to you. While you may enjoy gorging yourself on your favorite foods, you will discover that you can’t lose the weight unless you change your eating habits.

You see, the decision to lose weight is not enough in itself to power your success. You must also look at your decision and see what changes you have to make right now in order to bring that dream to life. You might look at your decision to lose weight and discover that there are many changes you must make in your life. Each one of those changes requires you to make another decision. You can feel like you are ‘giving up’ something. It can be frustrating.

The secret to success is looking at your desires and honestly assessing the changes you need to make. If you find yourself unwilling to give up your fast food addiction then you probably aren’t really committed to making weight loss a reality.

A happy, successful life is not about punishing yourself or going without. It is about learning your true desires and deciding which ones are important enough to you for you to begin changing. Life is full of choices and many times you will find yourself being pulled in more than one direction at a time.

The key to your happiness lies in understanding that you CAN have everything you want, just not all at once. Decide which of your dreams is most important to you and decide to make the changes that will make your dream a reality.

Peace,

p.s.  There are lots of great ways to help you choose your path and succeed in life, but none are matched by the power of a strong support network and positive feedback.  Those are just two of the benefits that a mastermind-style group can provide you.

p.p.s. Don’t forget to DREAM BIG!