Don't Get SMART

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Read anything on setting goals these days and, sooner or later, you’ll be told that all goals need to be “SMART”. If not, then there is no hope for you. The goal is not well set and you have little chance of achieving it.

Here, at random, are some of those promoting that view:

‘Setting goals…means creating a written plan that includes reasonable and measurable long-term and short-term objectives. It means setting SMART goals.’ Annette Richmond

‘The SMART acronym is used to describe what experts consider to be "good" goal statements’ Rodger Constandse

‘A key determinant of an individual's success or failure in meeting a goal can be summed up with one small word (or, more accurately, acronym): S.M.A.R.T.’ Christina Morfeld

Baloney!

A big problem with being SMART is finding any agreement on what the acronym stands for. Here are a handful of alternatives for each letter:

S - specific, significant, stretching, systematic, synergistic, simple, self-owned

M - measurable, meaningful, motivational, methodical, memorable, maintainable

A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented, ambitious

R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented, resonating, responsible, reliable, remarkable

T - time-based, timely, tangible, trackable, thoughtful

If my maths is correct that gives 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 3,125 possible combinations. Good luck!

I will look at each of these pompous precepts in a series of later blogs, but for now, let’s look at one example where SMART – whatever its constituent parts – offers no help at all. Indeed, it’ll probably get in the way.

Nic Rixon tells the story of a restaurant owner who was shot twice in the course of a robbery. As he enters A&E the restaurateur can see in the eyes of the staff that they don’t think he will make it. He is asked, over and over again by the medical team, if he is allergic to anything. But he can’t speak due to the trauma. As they wheel him into the Operating Theatre they ask him one last time and he gathers all his strength and yells, “Bullets!!!”

At that point everyone looks round and immediately everything speeds up. In that moment everyone’s belief changed from “he’s gonna die” to “we have a fighter”. The man survived.

Now that man had a goal. His whole existence turned on that one outcome. He did not have to get SMART about it – the goal was too important for that. He had neither the time, nor the inclination to work it all out, write it all down, set milestones and measure progress. Had he done so, he would probably be dead.

None of that was necessary. And, outside of sheer physical and surgical limitations, there was no doubt about the desired outcome.

For me that says a lot about goals, whether we have any hope of achieving them and what that may take.

When nothing else matters in the world other than your goal, then SMART is irrelevant. SMART is unnecessary. SMART may even delay you and make the goal less likely, rather than more likely.

The secret of reaching your goal is picking one that really matters that much to you.

More time would be better spent on finding a goal that, for you, is an all-consuming passion, instead of figuring out how to make some second-rate, minor league, lesser goal come about by using a version of being SMART.

The people who come to mind as being both memorable and remarkable do so because they devoted their life and their spirit towards achieving what we now regard as exceptional. And often, they are only inspirational looking back. At the time they did not plan and did not expect to arrive where they did. They were not SMART.

Some examples include Albert Schweitzer and Mother Theresa, the Beatles and Beethoven, Alexander the Great and Boudicca, Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci, Dante and Darwin.

It's the weight of our feelings that lets us know how important something is. We just have to be smart enough to recognize them.