Are your goals SMART? SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound. If your goals for this year do not meet those criteria, you are setting yourself up to repeat last year's disappointments. In this post, Mark shares what he learned from his own failures and how he is applying the SMART framework to get a different result.
Why Last Year's Goals Did Not Work
I will be honest with you. My biggest takeaway from 2014 was a lack of consistency. I did a poor job of creating content for you on a regular basis. That is the single biggest gap between what I planned and what I actually accomplished.
Before you spend time setting new goals, stop and evaluate last year. What did you actually accomplish compared to what you planned? If there are gaps — and there almost certainly are — own them. Understand what caused them. Einstein is often attributed with saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If you do not change your approach, you will get the same outcome.
What SMART Goals Look Like
A SMART goal is not vague. It is not “I want to grow my business” or “I want to make more money.” A SMART goal passes five tests:
- Specific: Exactly what are you going to accomplish? Not “more podcasting” but “one podcast episode per week.”
- Measurable: How will you know if you hit it? “50 podcast episodes by December 31” is measurable.
- Achievable: Is this realistic given your constraints? With 52 weeks in a year, 50 episodes is tight but doable.
- Results-focused: Does this goal drive a meaningful outcome for your business?
- Time-bound: When is the deadline? Open-ended goals never get finished.
Goals Are a Living Document
I keep my goals in Evernote and I modify them as I get more information. I do not mean making them easier to hit. I mean making them stronger, more empowering, sometimes deleting goals that no longer make sense. There is nothing wrong with adjusting your goals as long as the changes serve you and your business, not your comfort zone.
What to Do Right Now
If you have not set your goals yet, do it today. If you have set them but they are vague, take another pass and tighten them up using the SMART framework. Make them so specific that there is no debate about whether you hit them or not. Then review them regularly and adjust as you learn.
What's Changed Since This Post
The SMART goal framework that Mark described remains one of the most widely used approaches to goal setting. It has been supplemented by newer frameworks — OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) popularized by Google, and identity-based goals from James Clear's Atomic Habits — but the core principle is the same: vague goals produce vague results. The Evernote approach Mark mentioned has been largely replaced by dedicated goal-tracking tools like Notion, but the habit of regularly reviewing and adjusting goals is more important than the tool you use.
