Stop Setting SMART Goals.

Do you set goals?One of the first things you learn in business school, and then reinforced every class thereafter, is the book definition on how to set goals. After I came to the realization, during the 2nd semester of my Junior year of undergrad, that Chemistry was not in my future, I turned to the Business Department to finish off my degree. With zero business credits and only a handful of overlapping required classes, I had my work cut out for me if I wanted to graduate before the age of 30.

Okay, that may be a bit dramatic, but even the most optimistic advisor was telling me I was going to be a super super senior when I graduated. My only option was to pile on the summer classes.

This was my first introduction to any business class and Accounting 101 was my launching point for my new major. Like every good business class we talked about setting goals in the very first class. The Accounting professor who was a smaller man, that could talk debits and credits until the class all went cross-eyed, talked to us about setting goals. The classic acronym for setting goals is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Based). I cannot tell you how many times this concept was drilled into my head. I feel like I could recite this in my sleep. I had nightmares about setting goals that practiced them over and over. It didn’t stop there. When I landed my first job, the first big quarterly meeting I was in, setting SMART goals was brought up again.

There are books written about setting SMART goals, even entire entrepreneurial systems that are based on this concept. My second job runs their entire business based on this concept of goal setting. We meet to create quarterly goals that we hold each other accountable to during our weekly check in meetings. This concept has served me very well throughout my educational and professional career. So, to tell you I have been doing it all wrong this entire time is not an easy pill to swallow.

The worst thing you can ever do is set an attainable goal. I heard this from listening to a few different podcasts and it took me a long time to sink in and truly understand. Then, as if destiny or fate or frankly just good luck would have it, I was due for another quarterly goal setting meeting at work. This all-day event was all about looking at what was working and not working in the company, along with status updates on our goals. As a group we looked at the percentage of goals that were completed and celebrated the fact that we were 15/15 as a group with our quarterly goals. We were awesome…right?

Let me share what one of my goals was: set up configuration for new payroll platform. This sounds like a great goal, until you see what my next goal was for the following quarter: Document new payroll process to be followed by all. Fast forward another 3 months and then the next goal: implement new payroll solution. So, I was expected to configure and implement a new payroll solution and if I got it done in 9 – 12 months I was right on target and doing a great job. Fact of the matter was that it was 2 months of work that was strung out far longer than it needed to be. All because I wanted to be able to say I hit the incremental targets on time and of the need to write attainable goals.

Isn’t that the definition of attainable? We set goals for ourselves that we know we can hit, and if we are not sure if we will make it we look at the SMART goal theory and use it as an excuse to dial back out goal. Look, I get it, you want to be able to say that you achieved that goal because if you do not hit it then you failed, and that means that you are a failure, right? NO, stop associating your worth based on the achieving a goal. Instead look to the actions you have taken and the person you have become in the pursuit of the goal.

Let’s look at my payroll example. If my 3-month goal would have been to configure and implement a new payroll solution, after all it was 2 months’ worth of work. Even if I would have failed to hit the 3-month goal and it took 4 instead, I would have been done at least 5 months sooner overall. Take this and think about something in your life. Maybe you want to save up for a vacation for your family.

By July you want to have enough saved to pay cash for a Disney Vacation. You wrap a present that has a picture of the castle at Magic Kingdom with Mickey and Minnie welcoming everyone to the happiest place on earth for the kids to open. The excitement you have just thinking about seeing their face when they open the box has you smiling the entire time, even after the last piece of tape goes on. This is the excitement that will help propel those actions you need to take to make it happen. For the next 6 months you push to make it happen, but July comes and goes and you are a little short of your goal.

Does that mean you failed, do you really think it matters that you paid for that trip in August instead of July? Will those 2 months make those smiles any less when the kids open that box you decorated all those months ago? Absolutely not. You know what you did gain in those months though? You were able to transform yourself into the person you needed to be to hit those bigger goals. You became that person that does not settle for what you have always had. You start building that confidence to set those big goals for yourself and not limit yourself by what your past circumstances have been.

When you stop judging your success on if you hit a goal or not, you start thinking bigger and bigger. When you start thinking bigger, you change! You take consistent action, your non-negotiables become habits and effortlessly done everyday. Reaching outside of your comfort zone starts being a daily action that you cannot wait to tackle. You no longer lay in bed thinking about all the things you didn’t do that day, instead you struggle to sleep because you are too excited for what tomorrow will bring.

Goals are your GPS, they will guide you to destinations you have never been. Just like road trips, there will be unexpected turns, you will stop for gas, construction is everywhere, but your GPS will get you back on route. If it takes you a little longer to get to where you are going, that is OK. You are still going to get there. Stop setting goals that are attainable and start thinking unattainable because those are the goals that will drive you to where you want to go.

Don’t get me wrong, Branson is great, but I am going to Disney.

Want to come with?