Goal Setting: How to Set SMART Goals

Setting SMART goals will put you in the driver’s seat and on the fast track toward living the life of your dreams!

The start of a New Year, and every 90-day quarter, is a great time to work on setting goals you’d like to achieve, and this makes the solstices and equinoxes a great time to set new goals for your personal and professional development. Get behind the wheel on the road straight to your dream life with these SMART goal-setting tips!

First, use the step-by-step instructions below to learn how to set SMART goals. Next, create a goal action plan by writing down each step it will take to achieve your goals. And finally, commit to a regular goal review to keep yourself on track to meet your goals and live the life of your dreams. Set SMART goals to succeed in every area of your life with the step-by-step instructions below!

Related: How to Plan Your Daily Routine for Success

Related: How to Use The Power of Habit to Change Your Life

Goal Setting 101

Goal setting can help you reach your goals and succeed in every area of your life. I like to review and reassess my goals at the beginning of the New Year–and at the beginning of every 90-day quarter–but any time of the year is a great time to set goals. I like to do my annual goal review before or after the New Year as a part of my household rhythms. Although I may get lazy about doing it–I never forget that it’s that time of year!

The beginning of the year, and every subsequent 90–day quarter, is a great time to make resolutions, commit to healthier habits, and set goals. Of course, conducting a goal review at regular intervals throughout the year is another good idea to keep yourself on track. So we recommend doing a goal review as a part of your weekly (or monthly) review and at the beginning of each 90-day quarter, starting with January 1st. I like to use the equinoxes and solstices to know when to conduct each quarterly goal review because they occur approximately every 90 days.

Get started with our FREE QuickStart Weekly Planning Guide and the Dream Life Tool Kit!

Dream Life Tool Kit

Committing to a weekly, monthly, or quarterly goal review can help you accomplish the goals you set out to achieve because it can keep you focused on the action steps and tasks you must complete to reach them. So, commit to your dreams by setting SMART achievable goals with actionable steps and doing a weekly, monthly, or quarterly goal review.

How to Set Goals

To create new goals, reevaluate any initial goals or resolutions you may have made if any. If you have never made any goals thus far, move on to step 2 in the goal creation process.

Related: 10 Reasons to Make Rhythm and Routine a Habit

1. Review prior goals and resolutions.

If you have a prior goal-setting worksheet, now is the time to get it out for review. If not, you may want to invest in our Dream Life Tool Kit. It includes several printable worksheets, including a goal review, that make accomplishing your goals much more manageable. Follow your dreams and create a life you love with our Dream Life Tool Kit!

2. Make a list of life Goal category titles.

Make a list of your current life goal categories. In other words, create a category title for each area of your life that is important to you. In addition, include parts of your life and things you would like to manifest or create.

If, for example, you are single and looking for a relationship, you might add a relationship, partnership, or marriage category. Or, if you are married and want to start a family, you can add a family, motherhood, fatherhood, or parenthood category–or all of the above.

And if you are out of work and looking for a job, you can use a general job category, such as “career,” “business,” “job,” or “work,” as the title for that goal type. Or use the job title, place of work, or business name as your goal category title, such as “teaching,” “hospital,” or “Rhythms of Play” as the goal category name.

In other words, you can create goal-setting categories for any area of your life and title them however you please to make each type of life goal much easier to achieve. And we have several examples of category titles you can use, combine, or ignore on the list below.

Feel free to add or subtract anything you like from the list below to make a list perfect for YOU. The idea is to make your goal category titles reflect your morals, values, and overarching life goals–the things you like to do and want to do with your life.

Related: Household Rhythms: Using the Power of Routine in the Home

3. Do a brain dump for each life goal category.

After deciding on your current life goal categories, write each down on a separate piece of paper or digital note page. Give yourself plenty of room to write, scribble, doodle, and get creative to help the unconscious mind gets involved in the goal-setting creation process.

It is not time for fancy goal-setting worksheets. The first stage of writing down goals is messy and imperfect. You want your subconscious mind to get involved in the co-creation of your dreams.

It is also not the time to pretend that you can work on goal setting in your head. Many people believe the key to achieving your goals is writing them down. So don’t skip this first step, or you will only be cheating yourself!

Next, write down all your goals for each area of your life.

Get your desires, dreams, and goals out of your head and onto the corresponding list or mind map for each life goal category.

Follow your dreams and start by asking yourself a few questions:

• What do you hope and wish for in each area of your life?
• What would you like to happen, or would you like to change, if anything?
• If you could wave a magic wand at this area of your life to make it a dream come true, what would it look like, or what would happen or appear?
• Is there anything you can do (or stop doing) to help or allow this dream to come true?

Use your answers to create a list of goals or things you’d like to do in each area of your life. This is your chance to let it all go, get it all out, and get messy, so don’t hold back; add anything and everything that floats your boat! 

Include projects you’ve always wanted to start and anything you’ve started that you’d like to complete. All of it–keep writing, doodling, and letting your mind flow. Focus on putting everything you can think down on paper until absolutely nothing is left.

No need to think about logistics yet–or if any of your goals look too lofty at the moment. We will break these down into more manageable steps later. In other words, don’t worry about “how” to reach your goals right now. Just get every single one of them out and keep writing. The “how” will be decided when you create an action plan to achieve your goals.

It’s also a good idea to put your life goal brain dump lists somewhere you can continue to add to them and refer to them during your goal reviews.

When you finish writing down everything you ever dreamed of doing or expending any energy on, it’s time to fine-tune all your dreams, wishes, and projects into SMART goals. Use the tips in the next section to get started.

4. Make Your goals SMART.

Now that you have finished writing down your goals, it’s time to start fine-tuning them and making them SMART goals. The goal-setting worksheet in our Dream Life Tool Kit is an excellent tool to help you set SMART goals. The “SMART” acronym was coined by Peter Drucker in his classic work, Managing for Results, over 30 years ago.

SMART goals are:

M – Measurable 

• Goals must be measurable. If a goal cannot be measured, it is NOT a SMART goal.
• You need to be able to assess whether or not you are making progress toward that end for it to be measurable.
• Example: “I’m going to exercise a minimum of 30 minutes per day, 3-5 days per week” is much more measurable than “I’m going to exercise more.”

5. Create a master goal list.

To do this, use a goal-setting printable worksheet like the Master Goal List Found in the Rhythms of Play Dream Life Tool Kit. Or, take out a clean sheet of paper, or create a word document, to write down your top three goals in each area of your life. Using our printable master goal worksheet will jump-start your goal-setting ability by providing a framework for achieving the goals you set.

6. Choose your top three goals to work towards achieving.

Next, take out another sheet of paper, create a new word document, or start a new note, to write down your top three goals from your Master Goal List. In other words, choose the three goals you want to work on attaining right now. These are usually the goals that hold the most passion or are time-sensitive in some way.

Take a moment to think about why you want these things for yourself and if these are goals worth pursuing right now–or if focusing on that goal is something you can commit to at this time in your life. If not, you may need to reevaluate when it would be better to pursue that particular goal. Considering relevance is one of the many ways to make your goals SMART.

For example, you may want to attend law school but just had a baby. So, you might put off going to law school for now and instead focus on what you can do at home during your spare time to prepare for law school as your goal.

7. Balance goals to make them more achievable.

Choose goals that are a priority and work in harmony to balance and support each other. I am a firm believer in the idea that you can only give away what you first give yourself. Therefore, selecting a self-nurturing spiritual practice, such as meditation, getting outside to connect with nature, yoga, bible study, or tai-chi, as one of your three goals to work towards achieving now can create harmony, build balance in your life, keeps your priorities in check, and contributes to the successful completion of other goals.

Next, choose two more goals that balance and support each other. If, for example, I need to move in the next few months, I would make moving one of my goals because it is both something that I have to accomplish and is time-sensitive. Whether I’m ready or not, I have to move, so why not prepare for it by making it a goal?

Last, I would choose another goal to help support this goal, such as organizing or decluttering the house. Or, I could choose something business or career-related to keep myself on track in that area of my life during the move. These goals would both support each other and keep my priorities in check. This type of goal setting will lead to success because you make your goals more achievable.

When you have three goals to pursue that balance each other, put away your master list until the following goal review.

8. Turn goals into positive affirmations.

Next, turn your goals into affirmations. Learn how and why–>HERE.

9. Create a step-by-step action plan to achieve goals.

Once you’ve worked on SMART Goal Setting and made all of your goals SMART, you are all set to accomplish them. Learn how to create an action plan to accomplish goals–>HERE.

SMART Goal Setting for Success

You did it! You have three shiny new goals all set to accomplish. Congratulations to a SMART goal-setting job well done!

You’re well on your way now! Many people say that the key to attaining your goals is writing them down. Kudos to you. You’re halfway to living the life of your dreams!

Learn the following steps to help you attain your goals in How to make an action plan to accomplish goals.

Learn more about Rhythms of Play HERE!

If you liked How to Set Goals, You might also like:

• How to Review Goals
• Why I Turn My Goals into Affirmations
• How to Plan Your Daily Routine or Rhythm
• Organizing Life with the Power of Rhythm
• How to Use The Power of Habit to Change Your Life