What is goal setting & where did it come from?

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Goal setting is a focused process designed to help you achieve realistic goals within a specific time frame. This method of prioritising came from the business world, which focuses a lot on what we call, the bottom line or on measurable results.  

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At CharisMe, we highly recommend to use the SMART goal framework when creating and setting out your goals.  Let’s dive into what exactly are SMART goals.

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What are SMART goals?

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Smart goals are a structural framework which is used for standardising goal setting.  

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This 5 letter acronym SMART stands for: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-specific.  Basically, it's a 5 part formula which can aid how someone sets their own goals.  

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**Fun fact**: Did you know that the Smart goal formula was developed by 3 Americans called George Doran, Arthur Miller & James Cunningham?  They published this idea in the 1981 November edition of the Management Review in an article entitled, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management goals and objectives.” Check out the 1st page of the original 1981 November article below.

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Now, let’s break down each part of the SMART acronym.

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S stands for Specific.  Here you need to choose a goal which is clear and well-defined.  For a goal to be specific, it must be unambiguous and obvious.

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M stands for Measurable. The goal must be calculable in order to assess whether it has been reached or not.

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A stands for Achievable, which means there should be a realistic chance for this goal to be achieved.

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R stands for Relevant.  The goal you set should be an objective that makes sense to you and which connects with your overall aspirations.  

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T stands for Time-Specific.  In our busy and often time-poor world, it is vital that the goal is given a timeline so it is completed within a reasonable time frame.  Understandably, things can get in the way of allowing our goals to be completed, especially during high season or vacation periods, but assigning a fair time frame for each goal can instil a feeling of accomplishment if the goal is completed on time.

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Now, we know what the SMART acronym means, let’s think about how you can use the SMART framework to achieve something!

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Smart Goal Framework in Practice

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Let’s take 1 personal goal to illustrate how the SMART goal framework can empower us to achieve something specific and within a certain time period.

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For our personal goal, let’s imagine 1 of our New Year’s resolutions is to learn conversational Spanish.  As we travel to Spanish-speaking countries quite often for our holidays, it would be a really great personal achievement to be able to converse more fluently with the locals.  1st step, let’s organize our personal goal into the SMART framework to understand if it passes the SMART framework test.

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Below, we've assigned our personal goal to be Learn Conversational Spanish.

Why Not Try Using the SMART Goal Method Yourself?

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Now that we've walked you through the SMART goal framework, why not try using this method for one of your own personal goals? It's a very structured but very intuitive way of breaking goals down into smaller, measurable steps.

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Best of luck from the CharisMe team. We hope you find this framework a helpful tool when achieving any future goal.