Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals

As I've been working through my personal goals for improved mindfulness lately, I've found it challenging to create good goals with clearly defined outcomes. Perhaps that's because I'm working on things of a personal nature in this mindfulness challenge, or perhaps it's because I'm working on somewhat nebulous things like being more kind. But even with more concrete exercises, like eating more mindfully (an upcoming week), it can be hard to really define what you're striving for. Hard, but worth it. Put simply, a strong goal is one that defines, clearly, what you are striving for and when you have reached it. Concrete goals are, therefore, easier to achieve but they take time and some work to create.

Image from orangeshoe.com

In physical therapy, we say goals should be SMART:

• S- specific
• M - measurable
• A - achievable
• R - realistic
• T - time-bound

Last week I wrote about how dog ownership can impact health but also noted that I wanted to work on how I treated my (badly behaved) dog. A typical goal, then, might be to say: I want to be nicer to my dog. But that goal is not SMART. It's not measurable, objectively speaking, nor is it very specific or time-bound. One of the goals I did identify is that I wanted to train my dog not to jump up on people (usually me) when I am putting her leash on her to take her for a walk. So a SMART goal might read like this:

Our dog will sit on command and stay seated while having her leash put on her, with zero incidences of jumping up on people, within one month.

This goal is specific. It's clear exactly what I want my dog to be able to do. (I could make it even more specific by saying that I want her to be able to do this without using her spray bottle (of water--she hates it so much that most of the time we don't even have to actually spray her with it) or that I want her to be able to repeat this behavior five times in a row.) This goal is also time-bound; I know that I want to achieve this in a month. It's measurable because I've said I want zero jumps, so until I get to zero, I still haven't reached my goal. Achievable and realistic? Well I guess it remains to be seen just how bad my bad dog is.

Try rewriting some of your personal goals as SMART goals. What do you come up with?

image from www.liveeatplay.colostate.edu