S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.
The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts.

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timely

Specific

Goals should be straightforward and emphasize what you want to happen. Specifics help us to focus our efforts and clearly define what we are going to do.
Specific is the What, Why, and How of the SMART model.

• WHAT are you going to do? Use action words such as direct, organize, coordinate, lead, develop, plan, build etc.
• WHY is this important to do at this time? What do you want to ultimately accomplish?
• HOW are you going to do it?

Measurable 

Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set.

• When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.
  To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as……How much? How many?

Attainable

When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop that attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. Your begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.
Goals you set which are too far out of your reach, you probably won’t commit to doing. Although you may start with the best of intentions, the knowledge that it’s too much for you means your subconscious will keep reminding you of this fact and will stop you from even giving it your best.

Realistic

This is not a synonym for “easy.” Realistic, in this case, means “do-able.” It means that the learning curve is not a vertical slope; that the skills needed to do the work are available; that the project fits with the overall strategy and goals of the organization. A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t break them.

Timely

Set a time-frame for the goal: for next week, in three months, by fifth grade. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards.

So, we see that Goal setting is an important method of:

• Deciding what you want to achieve in your life.
• Separating what's important from what's irrelevant, or a distraction.
• Motivating yourself.
• Building your self-confidence, based on successful achievement of goals.

For example, instead of having "To sail around the world" as a goal, it's more powerful to say "To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2015 through sail and air and having $30,000 as budget." Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand!

So, we see that what we Prof. T.Prasad taught us realted to goal setting criteria, if we apply the same we have a better chance of attaining the goal and less chance of failure.