Goals are great.
Everyone talks about goals. Picking somewhere where you want to go feels great because you know where are headed. But what kinds of goals are the best?
SMART goals are a way to set goals that are effective.
Smart stands for
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Timely
For example if you want to get better grades a goal to "Get better grades", is a good start but not sufficient. How will you get there, what will you do?
A smart goal would be maybe something like this…
"I will maintain an A in my Accounting 310 class during the whole semester."
This new goal is specific, you can measure it, you can do it, and you know where to put your efforts.
In my leadership class, I want to set a goal to have more than 70% of the class read the assigned reading before coming to class by the end of the semester. I will measure it through link tracking in the email I send out and I will reach this goal by the showing them how important the readings are to class discussion which everyone likes.