November 14, 2024
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9 min read
Although setting and achieving goals can be challenging, it’s much easier if you know how to write SMART goals.
In our introductory guide, we’ll explain everything you should know about setting these goals, including what the SMART acronym stands for, examples of professional and personal goals, how you can start drafting your own objectives, and a helpful app you can use to work on improving your skills.
SMART goals are objectives that you aim to reach during a specific time frame. For example, in the corporate world, a manager might work with their employee to ideate and write goals for them to achieve over the calendar year. The word “SMART” in this case is actually an acronym of adjectives meant to guide folks into drafting more specific objectives.
Although they’re most common in professional settings, like at work, you can learn how to write SMART goals to achieve personal goals, too.
The “SMART” in SMART goals stands for: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. These five adjectives help people further define their goals so they’ll be more likely to achieve them.
Learning how to write SMART goals is important because it helps folks narrow down what they want to achieve and how they plan to do it. For example, you might say, “My goal is to pass the Fundamentals of Engineering exam.” It’s a great goal but it isn’t very specific.
How you’ll achieve that goal is unclear. Using the SMART format, you might say, “I plan to pass the FE exam in the civil engineering discipline by January 20, 2026, by leveraging my personalized study plan that includes plenty of study time spread across four phases.”
That goal is now specific (you’ll pass the exam in civil engineering), measurable (you’ll get a passing score), achievable (you have your study plan), relevant (civil engineering is your discipline), and time-bound (you’ll achieve this goal by January 2026).
Let’s dig a little deeper into the SMART goal framework and how you can apply it in your personal and professional life.
One of the advantages of learning how to write SMART goals is that the framework is so straightforward. If you’re new to the concept of SMART goals though, it might take a little time to get the hang of it. Here’s a deeper dive into those five specific SMART characteristics and what they mean for your goal writing.
The first component of the SMART goal framework is specifics. One of the biggest mistakes people make when writing goals is that they’re not specific enough. When goals are vague, it’s much harder to achieve them. To mitigate this, think about what you want to achieve and clearly define it. If you’re new to this framework, be as specific and detailed as you can. Consider the “who,” “what,” and “why” of your objective.
Depending on your exact goal, you might want to think about:
Make sure your goal is also measurable in some way. This can be tricky depending on your exact goal, but generally, you can add a means of measuring to any goal. The reason it’s important to make your goal measurable is because it helps you track your progress over time. People who set quantifiable goals are also more likely to achieve them. You can use metrics like key performance indicators (KPIs) to see how you’re doing as you progress in your goal.
If you’re having trouble coming up with a measurable aspect for work-related SMART goals, discussing with your manager or getting feedback from peers might help steer you in the right direction. For example, a goal like “I want to improve my conflict resolution skills” might not seem that measurable, but it can be tweaked to include “I’ll sign up for, complete, and pass a conflict resolution workshop or by the end of Q4.”
One of the reasons folks love SMART goals over more ambiguous, vague goals is that they’re achievable. They’re more realistic because of how specific they are. That being said, make sure your goal is actually feasible. Something like, “I’ll boost my website’s unique visits from 1,000 to 10,000 in one month’s time” might not be achievable. Consider what it is you want to accomplish and whether or not it’s reasonable. Really think about any potential limitations, resources, or needs.
It’ll also help to break down your overarching goal into smaller tasks so it’s less overwhelming and more realistic.
Of course, your SMART goal also needs to be relevant. If your manager asks you to write goals for the upcoming business year and your role is in the field of SEO, writing goals about improving your public speaking skills might not be as relevant. Consider your overarching, long-term goals and whether or not it aligns with your SMART goal.
In the workplace, this might also mean checking to see if your goal aligns with the company’s objectives or business goals.
Lastly, ensure your SMART goal is time-bound. In other words, define a natural timeframe that’s realistic for you. This can include setting specific deadlines for those smaller tasks mentioned above. For example, you might aim to pass your FE exam by January of 2026, but you could focus on studying the basics by November 2025 and devoting attention to your weakest areas by December 2025.
This makes your goal easier to achieve.
Understanding the SMART goal framework can be a bit easier with examples. Here are some sample goals to give you a better idea of what professional and personal goals could look like.
If you’ve been tasked with coming up with some solid professional development goals for the next business year, you’re not alone. It’s very common for employers to expect their employees to draft professional goals for the year. Here are some examples.
Let’s say your goal is to learn how to code in C#. To do this, you might aim to complete a C# course within six months and code three projects using this language after practicing every day for an hour. Instead of telling your employer you’d like to learn a new coding language, you have a fully fleshed-out plan of what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it, and when you’ll do it.
Perhaps you’d like to be promoted to a more senior position at work. In that case, you might tell your manager that your goal is to be promoted to a senior editor role. To do that, you’ll earn a performance rating of 4 or higher on your annual performance review within the next year while also actively looking for leadership opportunities.
Because SMART goals are so useful, you can even leverage them in your personal life.
Folks use personal SMART goals to facilitate reaching goals in their personal life, too. Financial matters, for example, can be stressful. You might have a loose goal to save up for a house. However, it’s not very specific and it’s a bit unhelpful when you’re facing such a huge objective. Luckily, we can use the SMART framework to make that goal more achievable.
For example, you might change your goal to save $20,000 for a down payment on a house within two years. To do that, you’ll budget and track your expenses to save around $840 per month and adjust as needed.
Fitness goals represent another area that benefits from more specific, realistic, and achievable objectives. If your general goal was, “I’d like to lose weight,” you could make it more specific by saying, “I’d like to lose 10 pounds in the next five months by increasing my activity by going on daily walks and eating less processed foods.”
If you’ve never done it before, ideating and drafting goals can feel overwhelming. However, it doesn’t have to be. Here’s how you can write worthwhile SMART goals in just four easy steps.
The first step of learning how to write SMART goals is narrowing down your core goal. What is it that you’re trying to achieve? It helps to think long-term, like where you see yourself in the future and what you envision yourself to be doing. For some people, that might be being promoted to a more senior role. For others, it might include professional development in specific areas.
Next, split up your main goal into mini-goals. Breaking your core goal down into more manageable tasks makes it easier to achieve. It can help to create a separate plan including all the steps you’ll need to take to achieve your goal. This can help with prioritization. Once you have all your steps written down, you can see which are most pressing and pivot your attention to them.
This will show you what actions you need to take and when you should aim to complete them. You can even set actual deadlines for each step to keep yourself on target to reach your overall deadline.
When writing SMART goals for work, it’s likely that your manager will ask you to write more than one. For example, you might be tasked with ideating three professional goals and one personal development goal. In this case, it’s important to make sure all your objectives align with your overall goal. If your long-term vision is to be promoted to a more senior role, you want to make sure all your goals point in that general direction.
Lastly, make sure you assign yourself a realistic, manageable deadline. Your manager might even set your deadline for you. It’s common in the corporate world to have professional and personal development goals for a business year, so your deadline might be “by the duration of Q4,” for example.
Whatever the case may be, make sure you have ample time to work toward and complete your goal by the deadline. Otherwise, trying to reach unrealistic goals in a short amount of time can lead to stress, employee burnout, and quiet quitting.
It’s also a good idea to bake in some flexibility in case anything unexpected pops up. That way, you can adjust your goals or timelines as needed.
Once you know how to write SMART goals, the next step is achieving them. Depending on your exact goals, you can take advantage of a tool like Yoodli to reach them even easier.
Yoodli is an AI-based speech coach that elevates your communication skills and provides you with an in-depth analysis of how you did and where you can improve. For example, you can record yourself giving a presentation or engage in conversational roleplay to put your skills to the test. These insights can help you make better, more specific SMART goals so you can skip the guesswork and go directly to improvement.
For example, if your goal involves building your emotional intelligence and confidence during public speaking situations, you can easily do both with Yoodli’s capabilities. Not only that, but you can actually track your own progress over time to see your improvements.
Learn more about how this speech coach can complement your SMART goals and help you achieve them for free at https://yoodli.ai/.
Learning how to write SMART goals is a valuable skill for anyone, no matter what industry you work in. Goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound are much easier to reach than vague or ambiguous objectives. Plus, you can always tap into Yoodli to help you achieve those goals, especially if they revolve around things like communication, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, or other similar skills.
Getting better at speaking is getting easier. Record or upload a speech and let our AI Speech Coach analyze your speaking and give you feedback.