Be SMART With Your Goals

Be SMART With Your Goals

During the quarantine, we’re all finding ourselves with a bit more time on our hands. We might use this time to do some self-reflecting. Let’s focus on setting SMART goals. What are they? Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Let’s dive deeper into each level of goal setting with the example below.

Specific- Clearly defining your goal will give you the first drive to get started. For example, you want to run. Let’s get more specific with “I want to run a race.” Great goal! But, we can get more specific! “I want to run a 5K race.”

Measurable- Define how you want to measure your goal. Of course, you have the overall completion goal, but you’ll need to define the steps you’ll take to get there to keep you on track. How often will you run? How long will you go? Now your goal reads, “I want to run a 5K race by training 3 times a week for 20 minutes.”

Attainable- This one requires some reflection. Is this goal within your reach? Or, is it so far fetched you don’t see yourself taking the steps to run the race? If you’re still not sure, talk to a personal trainer!

Relevant- This step is when we look at the goal in relevance to your life. Do you like to run or was this a goal commonly heard from your friends and other runners? You should personally consider the goal worthwhile and important.

Time-Based- Now is the time to set up a deadline.  When is the next or most realistic 5K to run? After some Googling, you find the next race is 4 months away. With this time-frame in mind now you are ready to finalize your goal.

Your final goal will now read as “I want to run a 5K race by training 3 times a week for 20 minutes in 4 months.” With a clear roadmap in hand, now you’re ready to start! Don’t be afraid to adjust your goals along the way, use this same stepwise setting tool to help you clearly adjust.