Learn to work sMarter!

In our first edition of the newsletter, we started talking about goal-setting and how we can tackle seemingly insurmountable tasks. To recap, we are talking about the SMART concepts by George Doran, but as time has progressed, so have the concepts. It has now been expanded to SMARTER, and we discussing the second portion of the acronym.

“M”

When goals are created, you must be able to measure them. They cannot be nebulous; otherwise, you’ll have no idea if you’ve actually achieved them. To recap my most recent goal- running a 5k obstacle course at Raymond James Stadium, I had initially said I had two goals: not to die and not to come in last. Pretty measurable. According to the placings, I came in third to last in my age group. Not bad for someone who isn’t a runner. But I had one measurable objective: not to stop or sit during the entire competition. I didn’t sign up for a competition to be a sightseeing tourist. I say that because there were competitors sitting down in the stadium seats during the run. Who knows, maybe their goals were different than mine.

An objective is a step that is a shorter and measurable term that relates to the goal. In this case, the objective of not stopping was to help me not come in last place. While you write your goals down, you should also be writing your objectives. Achieving an objective can also help you continue on a journey that appears overwhelming. You’ll notice that I tend to use a lot of fitness analogies, and this is because of my experience and education in exercise physiology. A measurable objective in terms of a weight-loss goal can be 500 steps a day, for example.

This can be applied to any part of life. Write down a simple and measurable objective toward any goal. You may have to hit that objective several times before you achieve the goal but such is life. Few worthy goals are ever easy.

Get after it, my friends.

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