Thinking SMART

So on my last article, I discussed some of my goals. I'm tired of being poor, so my wife and I am going to make a change. Today is the day that everything changes.

On my last post, I described some things that my wife and I wanted: to be debt free, to have a good credit score, to have disposable income, to own a home, and to own a farm. These are great things to want, but how are we going to achieve them? Just putting them on the Intarwebs and hoping is not going to make these wants a reality.

This is where being SMART will help us get to that goal.  For more information about SMART, please go to the SMART Goals Guide which is a significantly more in depth explanation than what you will read here. In general, SMART is an a acronym that helps a person write goals that focuses the method of the means in order to achieve a very specific end result. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time/Resource based. An example of a SMART is the following:

If I want to have an outcome of running a marathon, he would makes his goals by writing: in order to run and finish a marathon, I will run every week, three times a week for 13 weeks increasing the distance of running by two miles each week for the first 12 weeks. Then the last week will be the full distance of the marathon.

So is this goal a SMART Goal? Let us see. Is it specific? Yes, the goal is to run and complete a marathon. Is it measurable? Yes, you either run and complete the marathon or you do not. Is it achievable? Yes, unless I am physically incapable of running, completing a marathon is achievable. Is it realistic? Yes, in the same reason that the goal is achievable. Lastly, is it Time and/or Resource based? Yes, the enti.re goal should take 13 weeks to complete.

Now that we are I at an understanding about SMART goals, I will share with you my goals and how I plan to accomplish them on my next post.

photo credit: They're off! via photopin (license)