What’s your personal goal?” I asked him.
“To go to the gym,” he responded.
“Great! How many times?” I asked.
“Three times per week,” he responded.
“Great! For how long?”
“45 minutes.”
“Great! Is that 45 minutes for all three sessions or 45 minutes per session?”
“Each session.”
“Great! Lastly, is this something that you’ll have to push yourself to make happen this month?”
“Yes. I hate going to the gym.”
“Great! Now you have a S.M.A.R.T. Forum Goal,” I concluded.
This was a real conversation I had with one of the Forum members I recently trained. Their initial goal was to “go to the gym.” By the time I was done with my questioning, their goal morphed into “go to the gym three times per week for 45 minutes per session.”
Notice the difference? What we did was create a S.M.A.R.T Forum Goal. You might already be familiar with the idea of S.M.A.R.T. goals, but just in case you aren’t, here’s a quick recap:
S.M.A.R.T. goals are:
Specific – Goals should be written clearly with action words for what you are going to do.
Measurable – Goals should be measurable so that you have tangible evidence that you have accomplished the goal.
Achievable – Goals should be something that stretch you, but can be done within the given timeframe and resources.
Relevant – Goals should make sense to a bigger vision of what you are trying to achieve in your life.
Time-bound – Goals should be linked to a timeframe. For Forums, it is usually the 30 days that fall between meetings.
The final part to add that makes it a S.M.A.R.T Forum Goal is to make sure that the goal is something that you aren’t already planning to do because you’d do it normally, or have to do anyway. We want to use the pressure of the Forum to do something that is going to push you past what you already have a habit or obligation to do.
Run through each of these checkpoints for every goal you create, and you’ll be setting up some amazingly S.M.A.R.T. Forum Goals each month.