Smart Goals
1. Buy a House. 2. Take my kids camping 3. Potty train my son 4. Get out of debt 5. Earn my college degree
I will buy a house in two years and have $10,000 for a down payment.
I take my kids camping at least three times before it starts to get cold at the end of August.
I will potty train my son by his 3rd birthday in September.
I will pay an extra $50 per month toward my debt so I can be completely out of debt by January of 2014.
I will earn my college degree by attending college for the next four years.
When most people are asked what goals they have, a lot of people will not be able to think of something off the top of their head. If they have any goals in mind it is likely that they have had those goals for a while or at least thought about them in depth at some point. However, the majority of goals that people set for themselves are either to broad or just unrealistic overall. For example, if someone says that their goal is to lose 100lbs in a month obviously that is unachievable and extremely dangerous. When I look at the goals that I chose to list above, I understand what the goal is and have the overall concept of what I want to achieve with that goal. However, after putting my goals in the smart goal format I can see a big difference in what they mean to me. The smart goal format helps narrow down the overall purpose that I am trying to achieve. For example, the first goal that I put on my original list is buy a house. Now if I were to put that in a back of my mind and say that is a goal that I want to achieve in the future it could become a lost cause. By using the smart goal format I have narrowed the goal from an unlimited amount of time to two years and have set a specific amount to save up to in order to make my mortgage payments lower than they would be with no down payment and therefore easier to choose where I want to live. When I look at the second goal that I listed I see that it is another open ended goal. When I
I will buy a house in two years and have $10,000 for a down payment.
I take my kids camping at least three times before it starts to get cold at the end of August.
I will potty train my son by his 3rd birthday in September.
I will pay an extra $50 per month toward my debt so I can be completely out of debt by January of 2014.
I will earn my college degree by attending college for the next four years.
When most people are asked what goals they have, a lot of people will not be able to think of something off the top of their head. If they have any goals in mind it is likely that they have had those goals for a while or at least thought about them in depth at some point. However, the majority of goals that people set for themselves are either to broad or just unrealistic overall. For example, if someone says that their goal is to lose 100lbs in a month obviously that is unachievable and extremely dangerous. When I look at the goals that I chose to list above, I understand what the goal is and have the overall concept of what I want to achieve with that goal. However, after putting my goals in the smart goal format I can see a big difference in what they mean to me. The smart goal format helps narrow down the overall purpose that I am trying to achieve. For example, the first goal that I put on my original list is buy a house. Now if I were to put that in a back of my mind and say that is a goal that I want to achieve in the future it could become a lost cause. By using the smart goal format I have narrowed the goal from an unlimited amount of time to two years and have set a specific amount to save up to in order to make my mortgage payments lower than they would be with no down payment and therefore easier to choose where I want to live. When I look at the second goal that I listed I see that it is another open ended goal. When I