Two Tweaks You Can Use Immediately To Make Achieving Your Goals Easier

Hey, hi there! Just popping in to see how you’re doing with the goals you set a few months ago.

I know it was right around New Year’s Eve, and you were probably a little giddy from your 37-day-long sugar-cookie binge. You may have been a bit overly optimistic about what you could accomplish in the new year. But idealizing ourselves and our futures is what we all do until said future actually shows up, right about...now.

So....how ARE things going?

Like most people, you’ve probably blown right past your goal deadline, similar to an overloaded semi-truck careening down a steep hill. You didn’t even get close to achieving your goal. (I’m right there with you. My goal of being able to knock out 15 push-ups at the drop of a hat by March 1st? Yeah, that didn’t happen.)

Achieving goals is hard (not going to lie on that one!)

A study done by the University of Scranton found that 92% of people who set goals never achieve them. But that means 8% of people do achieve their goals, and you can be one of them. Nothing says you can’t reset your goals and restart working on them today.

Yep, today looks like the perfect time and place to start.

This time, you don’t have to do it all by yourself.

Just like it’s easier to stay afloat in the turquoise water of a swimming pool if you slip on some pink arm floaties decorated with shark prints that you borrow from your kids (ok, you might look goofy, but hey...floating!), it’s easier to work towards your goals if you have a little help.

And while this support isn’t kid-sized, nor is it covered in pictures of sharks, it will assist you as long as you make a few adjustments.?

I’m talking about calling on the power of the SMART Goals set up.

SMART Goals aren’t always smart

I’m guessing you’ve heard of this before. If you search “Setting up goals,” one of the first things that always comes up in the 245,689 responses is SMART Goals. Somewhere along the line, this became THE way to set up goals, which, for the record, it is not. It’s just A way. It’s a fairly helpful framework, to a point. The set-up just needs a little tweaking to make it shark-print floatie-worthy.

As a refresher, SMART is a mnemonic device that’s designed to help you remember that your goals should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

When you’ve completed setting up a SMART Goal, you should have a very Specific goal that is Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and has a Time-bound deadline for you to aim for. Set up your goal and bust out the champagne and confetti, just like you did on New Year’s Eve.

But wait, that didn’t work so well then, and it won’t work out well now because of two crucial details: what you consider Attainable and Realistic.

Your Definition Matters #1: Attainable

According to the SMART structure, your goal is supposed to be Attainable.

So my question to you, my friend, is what does Attainable mean in your world? Does it mean aiming for something you know you can do so you’ll be successful? Setting a low bar for your goal so you know you can achieve it, but not pushing yourself to aim higher.

Are you sacrificing growth in the name of guaranteed success? If so, you’re going for the easy Gold Star of Accomplishment rather than the life lesson of Expanding Your Reach.

It’s like setting your Goal to be County Champion (or whatever your particular sport, skill, or hobby happens to be) when you could set your goal to be the World Champion. Now it’s true you might not ultimately succeed at becoming the World Champion, but you’d definitely stretch and grow and learn a whole heck of a lot more than if you just settled for County Champion.

And then again, you just might end up being the World Champion. But you never would be if you were just content to settle for County Champion and then go home.

A purely Attainable goal limits you

Goals that seem crazy or completely impossible are how we change our worlds. What’s more important—achieving a too-small goal or trying to achieve something we’re not sure we can do? Both of them move you forward, but it’s just a baby step in one case; in the other, it’s a hop-skip-and-a-very-enthusiastic-jump-forward.

So, which one do you want in your life?

(Hint: the whole hop-skip-jump thing is much more fun, exciting, terrifying, and satisfying.) Deciding if your Goal is Attainable is a surefire way to remain small when you should be shooting for the stars.

Your Definition Matters #2: Realistic

The second problem with SMART Goals is having to make your goal Realistic.

This is another sneaky way to keep your goals small. You’d like to think, “Yes, of course, my goal is infinitely Realistic,” but who really knows what a Realistic goal is?

Every day people achieve goals that no one ever believed were Realistic: best-selling books get written, Olympic heroes are crowned, and people recover from horrifying accidents. Were these ever Realistic goals?

Not at all. They were pie-in-the-sky goals that people went for without limiting themselves by worrying if they were Realistic.?

Asking if your Goal is Attainable and Realistic limits your inspiration, enthusiasm, and possibly your future. So, in the interest of you successfully resetting and restarting your goals, I propose a solid tweak to the whole SMART Goals concept: replace Attainable and Realistic with Action and Response.

Tweak the SMART Goals

Change Attainable to Action, as in “I have an Action Plan to do this,” and change Realistic to Response, as in “I have a Response Plan for the unavoidable obstacles that will show up as I move forward.”

Subbing Action and Response into the SMART mix proactively takes care of two situations that inevitably show up when working towards goals: knowing what steps are needed to move forward and how to successfully overcome any and all of the 327 obstacles that inevitably show up and prevent forward progress.

These two plans don’t have to be mind-numbingly dull, boring, or tedious. As a matter of fact, they should be anything but! Use a little imagination and creativity to make your plans into something that inspires you, covers you in confidence, and makes you a goal-achieving machine that is the envy of the neighborhood.

Come up with an Action Plan to guide you

Developing an Action Plan gives you a concrete track to follow, so you aren’t winging your way towards goal success. All Action Plans give you the step-by-step direction to guide you as you move from where you are to where you want to be.

Action Plans of all kinds are really the roadmaps of how you plan to achieve your goals. In my mind, they look a little like an old Candy Land or Chutes and Ladders board, which are colorful, fun roadmaps that are very upfront about possible slip-us and obstacles in your path that can abruptly take you back to square one.

Before you start working on your Goal, take some time to think about what you need to do first, then second, then third. Then write them down as your plan to follow.

Next, take some time to ask yourself questions: Where might I need help? Who could I look to for advice? What can serve as a virtual floatie when I run into a roadblock and want to give up? These answers will be relevant as you put together your Response Plan to deal with annoying obstacles that will invariably appear in your path.

Response Plans to prevent exasperation

These obstacles cause frustration, confusion, and backsliding. Would it make you feel better to know that everyone encounters obstacles? It should. Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple in one seamless, obstacle-free step. He was fired from his own company at one point (major obstacle) before he came roaring back and introduced the world to iPods and iPhones.

Not exactly a seamless and obstacle-free triumph.

Sir Richard Branson, Martha Stewart, and the owner of your favorite restaurant down the street all encountered obstacles on the way to success, and somehow they overcame them. They are still experiencing bumps in the road and still finding a way to succeed, and so will you.

When you put together a Response Plan, you are planning for the worst-case scenarios you hopefully won’t encounter. But if you’ve successfully planned ahead, you can use your Response Plan to keep going when you encounter an obstacle.

There’s no need to call yourself a loser, throw your hands up in the air in defeat, or storm off in a huff and write a long Instagram post ending with #failure. You know how to handle what’s been put in your way because you thought ahead.

Learn from others

Do you know what really helps with setting up a Response Plan? Looking at others who have achieved what you’re trying to achieve, studying how they dealt with the obstacles that showed up, and grabbing their solutions and making them yours as well.

Who has done what you’re trying to do? What problems did they encounter? How did they overcome them? How would that same obstacle impact you? What are some options you could use that would enable you to keep going?

Take this information and use it to build an “IF this happens, THEN I will respond like this” chart you can refer to when needed. If you’re ready before obstacles show up, they are less likely to stop you in your tracks.

Give your goals another try

Achieving goals of any kind can be tough. So give yourself all the help you can. Tweak the SMART Goals plan and replace Attainable and Realistic with Action and Response.

You’ll no longer be limiting yourself to small goals that are Attainable or Realistic; you can now shoot for the stars with big plans, fully prepared for whatever obstacles and roadblocks you might encounter on your way.

Action and Response plans are the floaties that will give you the power to achieve your goals this time and every time.

Chances are you’re no longer in a sugar-cookie-fueled daze, and you’d still like to achieve one or more of your goals. Today is a great day to reset and restart that journey using a revised SMART Goals plan. Why not get started?