Goal Setting – S.M.A.R.T or H.A.R.D?

Written by Daz

 

I love every December hearing about how “next year will be better because…” and I love hearing people asking every January “so, what are your New Years Resolutions?” And I especially love when the wheels fall off later in January and people begin planning for the following January to do better. 

All of the above is sarcasm whānau, just to be clear.

 

Now, when we kōrero about goals, it is important to know whether you are setting personal or professional goals, whether you are doing for yourself or with your team, the principles are the same. But at the end of the day, the principles of goal setting are the same.

 

The days fly by right?! You blink and you miss them!

Work is busy. 

Life is busy. 

So, often we don’t even have the time to set goals, right?! (I actually call bullshit on these excuses, but anywho).  

Setting goals is just the start.

So, when you do set your goals, make sure you keep checking in to keep yourself away from shiny new things or deep rabbit holes that don’t align to where you want to go!

Action is the only thing that will make them a reality!

 

Setting goals helps you keep an eye on your progress, keeps up your momentum building and keeps you challenging yourself to lift your game and make your vision a reality.  

 

It is also really important to understand exactly why you are setting goals and that they are meaningful to you. They should give you clarity, purpose, focused energy and a true sense of achievement and pride when you achieve them. At the end of the day, goals are all about growth. 

 

We mahi with a lot of organisations across Aotearoa to build out Wellbeing Strategy’s and challenge different systems or processes that might be causing some friction or stress for their teams. 

We survey, we listen, together we identify themes where challenges or opportunities are and then we move into goal setting.  

And goal setting, surprisingly, often proves the hardest part of the process for them. 

 

There are plenty of goal structures that can be discussed and looked at, like BHAG’s and moonshots that capture your imagination, but this blog is focusing on just two.

Below are a couple of quick structures you can have a look at when goal setting:

S.M.A.R.T Goals and H.A.R.D Goals. 

 

S.M.A.R.T Goals are well known and help establish actionable steps for improvement.

 

What do they stand for?

S – Specific

M – Measureable

A – Attainable / Achievable 

R – Relevant

T – Time Bound

 

What do they mean?

• Get specific using who, what, where, when and why questions. 
  • What do we want to accomplish? 
• Adding numbers to make your goal measurable is important as they are repeatable and keep you accountable. 
  • How will we know when it is accomplished?
• Making your goals attainable means ensuring you can work towards closing the gap and build or use tools to help you achieve your outcomes. 
  • How can the goal be accomplished?
• Your goals must be genuinely relevant to you, or your team. 
  • Does this seem worthwhile?
• Ensuring your goal is time bound is really important to keep your wheels in motion, but it is also critical to be realistic with your capacity and what you are able to actually achieve in the time frames you set. 
  • When can we accomplish this goal?

 

Examples of S.M.A.R.T Goals

• • Personal Goal: “I will exercise 4 times a week for 45 minutes each session for the next three months to improve my fitness level.”
    • Specific: Exercise for 45 minutes, 4 times a week.
    • Measurable: Number of workouts completed each week.
    • Achievable: The frequency and duration are realistic based on your schedule.
    • Relevant: This goal is aimed at improving your fitness.
    • Time-bound: Over the next three months.

• Professional Team Goal: “We will facilitate one cross-departmental meeting every two months for the next year to foster collaboration between departments and streamline workflows.”

• Specific: Organize cross-departmental meetings.

• Measurable: One meeting every two months.

• Achievable: It’s feasible to organize one meeting every two months.

• Relevant: Improved collaboration can enhance productivity and culture.

• Time-bound: For the next year.

 

H.A.R.D Goals establish meaningful, engaging and transformational goals that are connected to the purpose behind them.

 

What do they stand for?

H– Heartfelt

A – Animated

R – Required

D – Difficult 

 

What do they mean?

• The heartfelt element of your goal will ensure you enrich other peoples lives, like your family, customers or community, as well as add whole hearted motivational fuel to your fire to achieve it! 
  • Ask yourself: Do you have a true emotional attachment to your goal and the outcomes attached to it? 
• The animated element means you can vividly imagine how it will feel to achieve the goal. 
  • Ask yourself: How will your life or others lives be different when your goal is accomplished?
• The required element adds a component of urgency by demanding that the goals you are setting are absolutely essential to move yourself, your community or your business forward.
  • Look at your timeline and ask yourself: What do I need to nail in the next six months to remain on target to achieve my bigger goal? In the next 90 days? 30 days? Today? 
• The difficult element highlights the need for you to get out of your comfort zone, learn new skills and learn to love a challenge in order to achieve your goal. 
  • Ask yourself: What am I going to do to prioritize my skill development in this particular area? Can I break it down into several skills that need to focused mahi from me? 

H.A.R.D Goals have the power to genuinely move you towards your dreams and to achieve effective change. 

 

Examples of H.A.R.D Goals

• Heartfelt Goal: Run a marathon to raise money for a childhood cancer foundation.
• Animated Goal: Write a novel by the end of the year and visualize yourself getting published.
• Required Goal: Increase your sales by 25% in the next quarter to meet your team’s target.
• Difficult Goal: Learn a new language to conversational fluency within six months.

 

To bring it all together

Whenever you set goals, make sure you reflect on:

1. Why the goals are important to you; and
2. What your life or organisation will look like when the goal has been achieved.

 

I also solidly recommend that you don’t set too many new goals at once, everything is buildable and you can ‘unlock’ the next stage one by one to achieve the big overall goal you are trying to get to, just like a great game of old Crash Bandicoot from back in the day! 

You don’t have to win the whole game in one go.

You don’t have to know how you will get there or how to do it.

And don’t stop when you achieve one level of your goal, you look over the horizon, reflect and go again. 

  

A fun way to remember them is to ask yourself, are you a SMART Ass, or a HARD ass?!

Jokes, that question has absolutely no relevance here. 

(But obviously I am a SMART ass! 😉)

You need to work out what is going to work for you. 

And once you choose. SMART or HARD, hold yourself accountable. Get them done. 

 

Decision time.

So which one are you going to use?