Setting SMART goals is one of the most common tools taught in business school. If you have ever felt like you’re working day and night but not getting anywhere, it may be because your goals aren’t set up to be attainable.

If you want to take the shortest road to success, you need a system for implementing time bound and target-based goals that are measurable.

Don’t waste your time rushing around trying to pack more tasks into your day, when you can design a path to success that allows you to maximize your time while achieving your goals.

The History of SMART Goals

The term SMART goals originated in the 1981 issue of Management Review by George T. Doran. Since then, it was popularized by Professor Robert S. Rubin of Saint Louis University.

If you aren’t familiar with the term, SMART goals is an acronym that says every goal you create must be:

S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Achievable
R: Relevant
T: Timebound

In later renditions of SMART goal teachings, professors have added an ‘E’ and an ‘R’ defining SMARTER goals as those that are also Evaluated and Reviewed.

Why is it Important That Goals be Measurable?

Measurable goals are the surest way to track your progress so that you stay on task and motivated. When you assess your progress, you maintain focus and meet deadlines. You also get to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with achieving progress.

If a goal has no way of being measured, then it has no definition of success. For example, if your goal is to “become a successful network marketer”, what metric is used to define what it means to be a successful network marketer? A better way of defining this goal would be something like, “I want to generate $5,000 in gross revenue during the month of November”. This goal gives us a specific and measurable metric that tells us whether or not we hit our goal.

Designing Your Target Goals

When you design your target goals, you have to make sure that they are things that are achievable with time and effort. That means that they also need to be realistic and attainable. While they can stretch your abilities, they must also take advantage of your skills and opportunities.

If you set a goal that is not realistic, you are setting yourself up for failure and you will quickly lose motivation because you did not meet your goal.

On the flip side, if you set a realistic goal that you can achieve during a specific time period, you will set yourself up for success and stay motivated because you did meet your goal.

Setting Timebound Goals

While it’s great to have lifelong dreams, setting incremental time-based goals is the way you go about achieving them.

For example, if your dream is to build a sustainable network marketing business that affords you the financial freedom to work when and where you want, you need to break up that dream into manageable and achievable goals that are designed to get you there.

Let’s go back to this goal: “I want to generate $5,000 in gross revenue during the month of November”.

This goal is not only measurable (as stated before), but it’s also timebound (i.e., the month of November). This allows us to measure our progress during the time period by specifying a definitive end date to our goal.

Creating timebound goals also creates an opportunity for us to define a process that breaks down our goal into manageable and actionable tasks that can be carried out on a regular basis.