What Are SMART Goals? A Breakdown With Examples

Everyone has an area to improve upon, whether that's getting a better job, focusing on healthier habits or completing a college degree. But it can be easy to get thrown off course as you try to accomplish your goals. You may even find that you're holding on to vague dreams for the future rather than making concrete plans.

If this sounds like you, then take note: a proactive way to combat this tendency is to create a SMART action plan to reach your goals. Here's how.

What Are the 5 Elements of a SMART Goal?

The “SMART” in SMART goal is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Those are the 5 boxes you need to check when you're making your own SMART goals.

What is an Example of a SMART Goal?

Consider the difference between the statements “I want to be in the best physical shape of my life” and “I will follow a training plan and go for runs three times a week for the next three months to reduce my mile time by 20 seconds.” The second statement is a SMART goal because it covers all 5 letters of the SMART acronym.

Other examples of SMART goals include:

• At school: “I will create and study flashcards for 30 minutes every day to get at least a 90% on my history test in two weeks.”
• At work: “I will spend 4 hours per week working to earn the professional certification my boss recommended by December 1st of this year.”

You can use SMART goals in any area of your life, whether you're planning to learn a language, make new friends or grow in your career.

“SMART goals are a part of my everyday life at work,” said Dr. Shanita Williams, vice president of people experience and inclusion at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU).

She said she sees SMART goals used throughout her department both on an individual and organizational level.

SMART goals can be helpful in countless professional and educational situations, such as:

• Creating a personal growth or professional development plan
• Designing a step-by-step plan for a job search
• Formulating a specific strategy to advance in your field
• Putting together a plan to continue your education

“Oftentimes we have goals and dreams, but SMART goals let us move toward those with intentionality,” Williams said.

How to Write SMART Goals: Breaking Down the Parts

To get a better sense of what SMART goals are and how to write them for yourself, take a closer look at each letter of the SMART acronym.

S: Specific

Sometimes ideas about what you want are too vague to build an action plan around, and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big.

But once you have a big idea, goal or dream, you can create definitive language around it, instead of ambiguous terms to help make your goals more specific, said Dr. Saecilia Jackson, a career advisor at SNHU.

To help narrow your focus, Williams recommends asking yourself:

• How will you know the goal is successful?
• What specific actions will you take to reach the goal?
• When do you want to achieve the goal?

Williams said that answering these questions will help you identify why, specifically, your goal is relevant and meaningful.

Creating that framing around your goals can increase the likelihood that you'll achieve them and that they'll yield success, she said.

M: Measurable

Here’s a basic rule of thumb: It’s not a SMART goal if you can’t tell whether you’ve achieved it. For example, Williams said many people want to be more confident. But if you want to know whether you’re moving toward that objective, you need metrics you can review.

Measurement, Jackson said, could help to connect each goal to a single performance result. Doing so can help you keep an eye on your progress. "It can (also) help to set benchmarks for yourself," said Olivia Butler, a career advisor at SNHU.

Let's say you have a project or assignment due in four weeks. To achieve this, Butler said suggests a series of milestones to keep you on track:

• Week one: Have a draft done
• Week two: Get feedback from stakeholders
• Week three: Address feedback and create a second draft
• Week four: Polish and publish

By breaking out a measurable plan, you can see how a four-week project becomes more attainable. Of course, you can always use a journal or an app on your phone to help you track and measure your benchmarks and goals.

A: Achievable

A good goal is one you believe you can achieve.

"Think the SMART goal through with the final objective in mind," Butler said. She recommends asking yourself:

• Why are you setting this goal?
• What do you hope to accomplish?
• How does this SMART goal align with or serve your ultimate purpose?

Once you answer these questions, you can dissect your goal even deeper to ensure your goal is both achievable and suitable for you.

For instance, if you have a dream job in mind, you may want to research the qualifications needed to attain the position. Do you need any certifications or a particular type of degree? You can also set career goals, including getting an internship or trying freelance work to continue building toward your goal. Understanding your end goal and how to get there helps make your goals SMART and more achievable.

R: Relevant

As we strive to make our goals specific, measurable and achievable, we risk losing track of that big dream that started us setting goals in the first place. For example, passing an introductory business course might be a more attainable goal for you than completing a challenging course in human anatomy. But, it's probably less relevant given it doesn't align with your long-term goal of becoming a nurse. Stay focused on what applies to what you want to achieve.

“Relevance to me is my ‘why,’” Williams said. “If you’re not able to clearly articulate a motivation for yourself, the rest of it doesn’t matter.”

In some cases, she said, students may come to college or into the workplace with goals in mind that are their parents, not their own. Unfortunately, that often means they feel less motivated to take the necessary steps forward than if they stopped and took the time to figure out the goals that felt personally relevant to them.

T: Time-Bound

The worst enemy of successfully achieving goals may be procrastination. You may have so many things you want to accomplish that if you're not careful, you can take half-steps toward some of them and not complete the things that are your highest priorities. That’s why deadlines are crucial.

Williams said that, in many cases, you need more than one deadline and several smaller end dates for taking steps toward your goal.

“If your goal is to run a marathon, you need to put in some mini-check marks (and) mini-SMART goals,” she said.

Achieving your most significant dreams will always be challenging, but with SMART goals, you have a clear path of manageable steps to get you where you want to go.

Nicholas Patterson ’22 ’25MFA is a writer based in West Michigan with several years of experience as a content creator in higher education. He’s an alumnus of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), where he earned both his bachelor’s in English and creative writing and his Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. When his head’s not in novels, you can find him outside dreaming up his own stories. Connect with him on LinkedIn.