How to Write SMART Goals: Examples, Step-by-Step Guide, and Free Template

 

In order to be effective, your goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. In this guide, we’ll show you how to write effective SMART goals for professional and personal scenarios.

What Is a SMART Goal?

A SMART goal is a framework for defining objectives, where each goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Follow this method to establish clear, attainable goals that hold you accountable to a deadline.

SMART goals are useful in all professional sectors and industries, as well as in personal life (see examples of personal and professional SMART goals below). Using this framework will help ensure that you are working toward clearly defined goals that you can execute by a deadline.

Additionally, the SMART framework eliminates guesswork and back-and-forth among parties. It also helps individuals and teams track progress with pre-defined success metrics.

Jake Munday is the Founder and CEO of Custom Neon, a company that creates custom signage. He says, “This framework ensures that objectives are not simply aspirational but also actionable by helping you create precise, manageable goals that can be tracked within a given timeframe.”

How to Create a SMART Goal

S	Specific	What do you want to accomplish? What specific outcome do you want to achieve?
M	Measurable	How will you measure your success? What type of data will you include? How will you evaluate it, and how frequently will you check?
A	Attainable	Do you have all the necessary skills and resources to achieve this goal? If not, can you obtain them?
R	Relevant	Is this goal aligned with your other goals, or the overarching goals of your team or organization?
T	Time-Bound	What is the timeframe for achieving this goal?

To create a SMART goal, decide what you want to accomplish, and then address each component of the SMART acronym. Make sure that your goal centers on an outcome, not a practice or set of behaviors. A SMART goal should, in the end, achieve something.

Use the chart below to see if your goal meets the SMART criteria at a high level. For a more in-depth discussion of how to write SMART goals, see our step-by-step how-to below.

Though it’s important that you clearly define your goal using the method above, remember that it’s still worthwhile to brainstorm all your various ideas. Once you see all the potential options, work with your team to refine the list and create SMART goals.

“I like to brainstorm with my team about our overarching or more nebulous goals, and then turn those into SMART goals,” says Allison Schmidt, the Marketing Manager at Get Online NOLA. “For example, a more vague goal could be to increase sales this year or to grow a TikTok following. However, that doesn't set you up for success. But having a broad goal helps you to break that down into more specific pieces or your SMART goals.”

To turn Schmidt’s example into a SMART goal, you would simply run it through the chart above — or follow the in-depth how-to below — to make it actionable, concrete, and measurable.

How to Write SMART Goals

To write a SMART goal, simply define each component in the SMART acronym. Go in order, and ensure that your proposed goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. If it doesn’t meet each of these criteria, slowly refine it until it does.

Follow the step-by-step how-to below for guidance on how to write and refine your goals to ensure that they are SMART.

S: Ensure Your Goal Is Specific

Think about this step as the mission statement for your goal. Focus on an outcome you want to achieve, not just a set of practices you want to implement. Be as specific as possible.

To do this, answer the five W questions (who, what, when, where, and why):

• Who: Consider who needs to be involved to achieve the goal. Consider appointing roles and responsibilities.
• What: Dive into the details of what you want to accomplish.
• When: Envision a general sense of the timeline you anticipate you’ll need to achieve this goal. You’ll have to be much more specific about this in the “T” section of the how-to.
• Where: This question may not always apply, especially if you’re setting personal goals, but if there’s a location or relevant event your goal is tied to, identify it here.
• Why: What is the reason for the goal? When it comes to using this method for employees, the answer will likely be along the lines of company advancement or career development.
   

“Define the goal as clearly as possible. Avoid vagueness which can lead to misdirection,” says Munday.

M: Decide How You Will Measure Your Goal

In this step, decide which metrics you will use to track your progress and to define whether or not you are successful. Doing so makes a goal more tangible because it provides a way to concretely measure progress. If your goal will take several months to complete, set some milestones tied to specific subtasks.

“Ensure that the goal can be quantified or a clear indicator of progress can be identified,” says Munday. If the goal can’t be quantified, you will need to adjust it.

A: Ensure Your Goal Is Attainable

“Your goal should be challenging yet attainable with the available resources,” continues Munday.

Look at the resources available to you — people, capital, tools, etc. — and assess whether this goal is realistic with your current means. You might also look at data on past projects to determine whether this new goal is attainable.

If not, that doesn’t mean you need to abandon your goal. Simply assess the costs of investing in additional resources, or consider extending your timeline in the time-bound section below.

R: Ensure That Your Goal Is Relevant to Larger Objectives

In this scenario, relevance refers to how well your goal aligns to larger team or organizational initiatives. Ideally, your goal will support the other work you’re doing and serve your long-term goals in some way. If nothing else, it should not detract or divert energy away from goals you’re already committed to.

T: Give Yourself a Time Limit for Accomplishing Your Goal

Setting a hard deadline will help you measure progress, even if you don’t accomplish your goal in the allotted time period.

Anyone can set goals, but if it lacks realistic timing, chances are you’re not going to succeed. Commit to a target date for deliverables, and ask all stakeholders whether this goal is likely to be completed in the allotted time period.

If the goal will take three months to complete, it’s useful to define what should be achieved halfway through the process. Providing time constraints also creates a sense of urgency.

Microsoft Word SMART Goals Worksheet

When to Use: Use this worksheet to brainstorm and refine your SMART goals. Start by making an extensive list of all possibilities, and then slowly edit and refine that list in order to draft your final SMART goal.

Notable Features: The template is broken out into sections for each letter in the acronym: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Each section includes prompts that will help you brainstorm all the variables that you need to take into account. Then, you can home in on your priorities and write your finalized SMART goals.

How to Pick the Right SMART Goals

The “right” SMART goals will be in line with larger team or organizational objectives. Don’t commit to any new goal that conflicts with or counteracts an existing goal. Instead, make sure all goals align and work together to achieve organizational success.

“To choose the right SMART goals, I first assess the overall objectives of the project or initiative,” says Munday of Custom Neon. “Understanding the end game allows me to reverse engineer the steps needed to get there, which I then shape into specific SMART goals. It’s crucial that each goal directly contributes to the larger objective to maintain coherence and focus throughout the project.”

Alex Ugarte, the Operations Manager at London Office Space, echoes this sentiment. “Ensure [your goals] align closely with broader ambitions,” he says. “This ensures that every effort directly supports your overarching aims, optimizing impact and resource use.”

One way to accomplish this is to look at the larger organizational goal and break it down into smaller, more manageable goals. This not only makes it less intimidating to get started but also brings the loftier goals out of the abstract and transforms them into concrete, actionable steps.

Examples of SMART Goals

You can write SMART goals for any professional setting or industry, as well as for your personal life. Below, you’ll find real-world examples of initiatives and how to format them as SMART goals.

Professional SMART Goal to Improve Employee Performance and Retention

Ritchie Tendencia, the CEO of CSV Now (Consult Silicon Valley Now), wanted to improve overall employee satisfaction and performance. That’s a great impulse, but as written, it wasn’t concrete enough — that is, SMART enough — to be achievable or impactful.

Tendencia then defined the parameters of his goal using the SMART framework. The SMART version of this goal is as follows:

I want to reduce employee turnover rates by at least 10 percent in the next quarter.

This specific, measureable, and time-bound goal led to an “increased employee satisfaction via a structured training program [that] led to a 15 percent reduction in turnover rates and improved client satisfaction,” says Tendencia. “[This demonstrates] the effectiveness of the SMART framework in driving meaningful outcomes.”

Professional SMART Goal to Decrease Customer Churn Rate

Axel Lavergne is the Founder of ReviewFlowz, a review and testimonial service for SaaS companies. He wanted to increase customer satisfaction and retention — in other words, to decrease customer churn. His team needed to define both the timeline of this objective and the success metrics.

We aim to reduce customer churn rate by 10 percent in six months.

Once Lavergne and his team had clear-cut metrics and a schedule to adhere to, he ended up exceeding his goal. “We achieved this by improving our onboarding process, offering more comprehensive training resources, and regularly checking in with new customers. This resulted in stronger customer relationships and a significant reduction in churn,” he says.

Personal SMART Goal to Become a Better Leader

Jake Munday of Custom Neon wanted to improve his leadership skills and become a stronger CEO. However, he needed to focus his efforts on something tangible so the goal could be measured and the necessary actions wouldn’t be so vague.

Here’s how he turned it into a SMART goal:

I want to complete a leadership development course in three months, by dedicating two hours every week to study.

“This goal was specific to professional growth, measurable by course completion, achievable within my weekly schedule, relevant to enhancing my leadership skills as a founder and CEO, and time-bound by a three-month period,” says Munday.

Personal SMART Goal to Increase My Business Knowledge

Lavergne of ReviewFlowz wanted to increase his business knowledge by reading more books but needed to concretize the goal. He followed the SMART formula and wrote the following SMART goal:

I will increase my business knowledge by reading one business book per month for a year.

“This goal was specific, measurable, achievable, relevant to my professional growth, and time-bound, helping me stay disciplined and informed,” says Lavergne. “It significantly broadened my knowledge and improved my business strategies, making me a more effective leader.”

How to Track SMART Goals

It is imperative to track SMART goals to measure your progress and assess whether or not you were successful. Because SMART goals require you to define the metrics and timeframe of each goal up front, they are relatively easy to track and report on.

Below are some expert tips for tracking SMART goals:

• Ensure That the Goal Is Actually Measurable: “Make sure the goals you set out are actually measurable,” says Ugarte of London Office Space. “Have quantifiable criteria to track progress and determine when the goal has been achieved. For example, rather than aiming to ‘improve customer satisfaction,’ instead set a goal to ‘achieve a customer satisfaction score of 90 percent as measured by our end-of-service surveys.’" 
• Stick to the Metrics You Defined Up Front: Part of defining a SMART goal is choosing how you will measure success. To effectively report on your performance, don’t change these metrics midway through.
• Set Up a Tracking System: Use project management software or another goal-tracking program to monitor your progress. This ensures that you have a single source of truth for all team members to refer to and will help keep you accountable to your goals. Visit our complete roundup of goal tracking templates to get started tracking your progress.
• Consistently Evaluate Your Progress: Decide how frequently you will track progress. Don’t refer to your metrics so often that it becomes its own source of stress (i.e. every day), but check often enough that you are looped into any unanticipated hangups. Consistently monitoring progress will allow you to communicate and collaborate early if things go off course.
• Celebrate Every Win: “Make sure you celebrate once the goal's been hit,” says Logan Mallory, VP of Marketing at Motivosity, “recognizing that hard work, energy, and commitment is how you keep folks motivated, preventing future goals from feeling like a thankless hamster wheel.”

• Reflect on and Learn from Each Round of Goals: Even if you fall short of a goal, it’s worth reflecting on it with the team. What went well, and what could have gone better? Bring those new insights to your next round of goals, and adjust criteria — such as time or resources — to hit your new goals.
• Don’t Be Afraid to Reassess and Edit Your SMART Goals: “I always make sure I've got a few sessions scheduled across a week or two to revisit my SMART goals before finalizing them,” says Mallory of Motivosity. “SMART goals are like any rough draft. The very first stab at it probably won't be the best or most elegant. Give yourself time to play around with the goals, revisiting their clarity and details and really leaving space for final tweaks.”

https://tinyurl.com/362te2m8

Are we there yet? Evaluating NFP outputs, outtakes, outcomes & impact

 

Evaluation – Part 2

Evaluation is one of the central elements in the EDM (Evaluate, Direct, Monitor) Governance Model, but its role in governance (and management) is often obscured by the use of other terms, like ‘problem-solving’ or ‘decision-making’. The importance of evaluation in non-profit governance is highlighted in the extracts from AICD’s NFP Governance Principles illustrated below.

Part 1 (https://bit.ly/41GhRCr) in this 2-part series on Evaluation mainly focussed on directors using evaluation measures to address their performance and conformance roles. The diverse nature of evaluative activities carried out across the organisation would acknowledge the wide scope of work implied by the following definition of ‘evaluation’. That broader scope is the theme explored in Part 2 of the series.

As well as seeking recognition of this wider scope of evaluation activities, the shift of emphasis in recent years towards the evaluation of outcomes and impacts also requires that we understand these terms, so that shared understandings inform board and management deliberations.

Integrated evaluation framework

There are many types of evaluation activity and numerous methods to choose from. Evaluation is used in virtually all aspects of organisational life, yet there are few organisations with (monitoring and ) evaluation frameworks or policies to guide directors and staff in this key aspect of their work.

There are numerous ways one could approach the development of an integrated framework, and each has its merits and drawbacks. Looking through multiple lenses may help to overcome some of these drawbacks (think blind people each touching a different part of an elephant). Here are just some of the lenses that could be employed in thinking about evaluation in a non-profit entity.

Working with directors and managers in many organisations, the existence of ‘evaluation silos’ has been evident. It is often the case that people involved in internal audits see no connection between their work and that of their colleagues involved in program evaluation, risk management, performance management, tendering, or project management.

Much of the evaluation literature focuses on development projects or education, and there is relatively little which is overtly identified as relevant to evaluation across the non-profit organisation. Some boards have adopted a monitoring and evaluation framework to bring structure and consistency to evaluations conducted by or for the board, however, these tend to focus on indicators attached to their strategy, along with selected dashboard elements (like solvency and membership trends).

Thinking of evaluation only in terms of directors using data from monitoring activities to determine whether and how well strategic and operational outcomes were achieved, and to guide future strategy, is a limited view of the role played by a spectrum of evaluation activities, some of which are described with different names.

Boards wishing to ensure that a coherent approach to evaluation is taken throughout their organisation may wish to consider the development of an integrated evaluation framework, which will help to ensure that the results of evaluative activities are presented to directors in a more coherent form. For such a framework to apply across the spectrum of evaluation activities undertaken, it would doubtless need to focus on a set of evaluation principles rather than any single approach. Here are two sample sets of such principles which may offer starting points for your organisation’s Monitoring and Evaluation Framework.

Critical thinking

In Bloom’s (original) Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, evaluation was at the top of the hierarchy of thinking skills – the pinnacle of critical thinking. Perhaps partly in recognition that evaluation did not necessarily solve problems or result in innovation, Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (2001) added ‘creating’ to the top of the hierarchy.

The EDM (Evaluate, Direct, Monitor) Governance model already recognised that evaluation was not the last or highest step in governance thinking. Once the ‘What?’ and ‘So What?’ questions have been answered via monitoring and evaluation, the ‘Now What?’ question remains to be answered by the board setting directions for future action (creating). (See header image above.)

Evaluation for quality

A parallel can be seen in the operational uses of evaluation, where conclusions drawn about the value, standard, or status of a matter within a given ‘silo’ are only some aspects of quality assurance and precursors to quality improvement.

Given its significant role in shaping the insights which inform future plans and activities, the recent shift in evaluation practice to an outcomes focus is a welcome development.

Thinking of evaluation only in terms of directors using data from monitoring activities to determine whether and how well strategic and operational outcomes were achieved, and to guide future strategy, is a limited view of the role played by a spectrum of evaluation activities, some of which are described with different names.

Evaluation logic

Attempting to devise an organisational evaluation framework or model that accommodates this wider collection of evaluative activities could run the risk of oversimplifying various parts of the evaluative ecosystem. Failure to seek a coherent framework, however, could miss the opportunity to see relationships and patterns offering significant insights into organisational development opportunities and enhanced quality management. The logic framework suggested below packs a lot of detail into a single chart, but hopefully offers insights that will be helpful to your board and senior managers as they seek to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your non-profit or for-purpose entity.

When we recognise our organisation as a system comprising interdependent sub-systems and relationships, we break down silos and challenge narrow views about how people, systems, processes, and technology interact to achieve our purpose/s or execute strategy.

Measuring success, progress, and impact

The evaluation methods, metrics, and milestones identified in your evaluation plan will benefit from looking beyond mere outputs, to identify lessons learned along the way (outtakes), outcomes achieved for stakeholders, and the longer-term impact of your strategy, service model, and campaign activities (where applicable). Identifying your evaluation criteria after the initiative or program has concluded runs the risk of hindsight bias clouding the picture. Using a logic framework like the one suggested above should help to avoid that risk.

https://www.aes.asn.au/talking-about-evaluation
https://www.councilofnonprofits.org/tools-resources/evaluation-and-measurement-of-outcomes

https://balancedscorecard.org/bsc-basics-overview/

https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/index-of-articles/1021/

https://tinyurl.com/yresy54e

Do things happen because of you, or do things happen to you?

 

Harish BhatiaHarish Bhatia

I found this simple framework quite powerful to coach and mentor individuals who tend to slip away into victim behaviors or mindsets when the going gets tough.

Shared this with a few business leaders, owners & CXOs and the immediate response was to identify people in their teams who they could slot into one of the respective levels.

P.s - Not taking credit for the model, I came across this and due credit to whoever illustrated this in this simple form.

Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability

 

Accountability breeds response-ability.

Each team engages in a simple weekly process that highlights successes, analyzes failures, and course-corrects as necessary, creating the ultimate performance-management system.

The cadence of accountability is a rhythm of regular and frequent team meetings that focus on the Wildly Important Goal®. These meetings happen weekly, sometimes daily. They ideally last no more than 20 minutes. In that brief time, team members hold each other accountable for commitments made to move the score.

The secret to Discipline 4, in addition to the weekly cadence, are the commitments that team members create in the meeting. One by one, team members answer a simple question, “What are the one or two most important things I can do this week that will have the biggest impact on the scoreboard?” In the meeting, each team member reports first if they met last week’s commitments, second if the commitments move the lead or lag measures on the scoreboard, and finally which commitments they will make for the upcoming week.

People are more likely to commit to their own ideas than to orders from above. When individuals commit to fellow team members instead of only to the boss, the commitment goes beyond professional job performance to become a personal promise. When the team sees they are having a direct impact on the Wildly Important Goal, they know they are winning, and nothing drives morale and engagement more than winning.

Create a cadence of accountability

With Discipline 4, teams share accountability. Commitments are not only made between leaders and their teams; they are made between individuals on the teams. By keeping weekly commitments, team members influence the lead measure which in turn is predictive of success on the lag measure of the WIG®.

Where do you find people who are passionately committed to their work? You find them working for leaders who are passionately committed to them.

— Jim Huling, Co-author of The 4 Disciplines of Execution

Where execution actually happens

The fourth discipline is to create a cadence of accountability, a frequently recurring cycle of accounting for past performance and planning to move the score forward. Discipline 4 is where execution happens. Disciplines 1, 2, and 3 set up the game but until you apply Discipline 4, your team isn't in the game. 

This is the discipline that brings the team members together.

In Discipline 4, your team meets at least weekly in a WIG session. This meeting lasts no longer than 20 to 30 minutes, has a set agenda and goes quickly, establishing your weekly rhythm of accountability for driving progress toward the WIG.

Here's the three-part agenda for a WIG session and the kind of language you should be hearing in the session:

1. Account: Report on commitments.

"I committed to make a personal call to three customers who gave us lower scores. I did, and here's what I learned..."

2. Review the scoreboard: Learn from successes and failures. 

"Our lag measure is green, but we've got a challenge with one of our lead measures that just fell to yellow. Here's what happened..."

3. Plan: Clear the path and make new commitments.

"I'll meet with Bob on our numbers and come back next week with at least three ideas for helping us improve."

To prepare for the meeting, every team member thinks about the same question: "What are the one or two most important things I can do this week to impact the lead measures?"

The WIG session should move at a fast pace. The WIG session also gives the team the chance to process what they've learned. You should often ask each team member "What can I do this week to clear the path for you?"

Each commitment must meet two standards:

1. The commitment must represent a specific deliverable.
2. The commitment must influence the lead measure. 

If you simply tell your team what to do, they will learn little. What you ultimately want is for each member of your team to take personal ownership of the commitments they make. 

A Different Kind of Accountability

The accountability created in a WIG session is not organizational, it's personal. Instead of accountability to a broad outcome you can't influence, it's accountability to a weekly commitment that you yourself made and that is within your power to keep. When members of the team see their peers consistently following through on the commitments they make, they learn that the people they work with can be trusted to follow through. When this happens, performance improves dramatically. 

The WIG session encourages experimentation with fresh ideas. It engages everyone in problem-solving and promotes shared learning. 4DX produces results not from the exercise of authority, but from the fundamental desire of each individual team member to feel significant, to do work that matters and, ultimately, to win.

https://cutt.ly/awqOcWg6