Get SMART – Lesson

Get SMART
Click here to open and print your Get SMART Guide

If you were planning to take a road trip across the United States, you would not get where you wanted to go unless you had a plan in place to help you reach your destination. You could use a GPS to keep you on track. Then if you got off course, your GPS would immediately adjust the route to keep you going in the right direction. Goal setting works the same way. When you set goals for yourself, they let your brain know where you are headed. Then your conscious and subconscious mind get to work helping you reach your destination. Believe it or not, your brain needs goals to get going. To engage your brain you need to make SMART goals.

Why goals?
You may not be convinced that you need to set goals or that you need to write them down. However, studies have shown that people who not only set goals, but also write them down are more likely to reach their goals. Mark McCormack, in his book What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School, tells of a Harvard study that found that graduates who wrote down their goals were considerably more successful than those who did not. Stacy Chadwill outlines seven reasons we should write goals.
On your activity guide, write down your most important reason/s for setting goals.

What do you want?
If you are having a tough time deciding on your goals, think about the things you want from life. Create a picture of what you want to achieve. Author Christine Comaford explains how a dream board helped her mobilize her energies to achieve the goals she wanted. What pictures or other visual images would help you focus your energies and motivate you to achieve your goals? Make a “dream board” of the pictures that speak to you. You could create your own visioning board via your phone or use a commercial app like this one.
On your activity guide, describe the pictures, ideas, and quotes you would put on your dream/visioning board.

How do you write goals?
The SMART goal setting strategy is one of the best and quickest ways to write effective goals. View this 2-minute video clip to get a review of what it takes to write a SMART goal.

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On your activity guide, define the SMART goal acronym.

Now you have the why, what, and how of goal setting, write down a course goal, a personal goal, and a career goal on your “Get SMART” guide and make each one SMART. Then begin to take action to get where you want to go. After all, if you know where you are going, you can’t get lost.