SMART Goal Setting:
Goal-setting is a worthwhile activity at any stage of life, including while you’re a student. Learning how to set and achieve goals is a life skill that will serve you well no matter your future plans.
How do you set meaningful goals that you can actually achieve? Many accomplished students and professionals rely on the SMART goal-setting method. This approach defines your purpose and sets clear objectives to establish success.
SMART is an acronym that stands for
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-Bound
According to the Corporate Finance Institute, “SMART goals set you up for success by making goals specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. The SMART method helps push you further, gives you a sense of direction, and helps you organize and reach your goals.”
Students can use the SMART method to reach any academic or personal goal by following a few simple steps.
SPECIFIC: DEFINE YOUR GOAL
To reach your goal, it needs to be specific and well-defined. You are much more likely to accomplish your objective if it is clear-cut rather than vague. For example, instead of setting a goal to get better grades this year, you should define which grades you’d like to achieve in which subjects.
Be as detailed as possible. Here are some questions you’ll want to answer when defining your goal:
What do I want to accomplish?
What is the purpose of achieving this goal?
Why is this goal important?
What do I need to do to meet the objective?
Who is involved?
Where is it located?
When do I want to accomplish this goal?
Which requirements and constraints are involved?
Are there any obstacles I have to overcome?
MEASURABLE: HOW WILL YOU MEASURE SUCCESS?
Setting a goal that you can measure is crucial because it allows you to track your progress and stay motivated. Having quantifiable data or criteria makes the goal measurable.
In the example above, if your goal is to get better grades, think specifically about what “better grades” means to you. For example, does it mean getting straight A’s or bringing up your GPA to a particular level?
You should establish concrete criteria for measuring progress. Ask yourself these questions:
How much?
How many?
How will I know when it is accomplished?
ATTAINABLE: CAN YOU ACCOMPLISH THIS GOAL?
When goal-setting, you should push yourself outside your comfort zone and make goals that will challenge you. But, it’s equally important to set goals that are realistic and attainable. Put simply, you must be willing to work to attain your goals, but you must also be able to achieve your goals.
As an example, maybe your goal is to make the varsity soccer team. But you’re a freshman, and the coach never allows first-year students to join the varsity team. In that case, it might be a more reasonable goal to shoot for the junior varsity team. This will set you up to achieve your ultimate goal of making the varsity squad in your sophomore, junior, or senior year when you’ve gained more experience.
RELEVANT: IS YOUR GOAL CONSTRUCTIVE?
A relevant goal is results-focused. It’s not just an activity or an exercise. Your goal should help you advance in some way, either academically or personally.
A results-focused approach will help you achieve your goal while ensuring it’s a productive pursuit.
TIME-BOUND: WHEN WILL YOU ACCOMPLISH YOUR GOAL?
A goal should always have a defined deadline. Without a timeframe, there is no sense of urgency, and you’re unlikely to attain it. As a high school student, you live in the framework of school semesters and years, so these can be suitable units of measurements to judge your progress.
WRITING SMART GOALS
Perhaps the most critical step in the goal-setting process is writing down your goals. Writing goals down makes them concrete, and research suggests you’re much more likely to reach written goals.
When writing your SMART goals, be as descriptive as possible. Forbes explains, “Vividly describing your goals in written form is strongly associated with goal success, and people who very vividly describe or picture their goals are anywhere from 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to successfully accomplish their goals than people who don’t.”
Here are some tips for writing down your goals:
Use verb-noun structure. Each action item should begin with a verb. (ie. Increase GPA from 3.0 to 3.5 during junior year; Volunteer at the animal shelter 5 hours a month).
Break the big picture into smaller, doable increments with action plans for each step.
Review action plans regularly.
Identify obstacles to success.
Prioritize your goals based on importance to you, both now and in the future.
SMART GOALS FOR STUDENTS
Establishing SMART goals allows you to clarify your ideas, focus your efforts, use your time and resources wisely, and increase your chances of achieving your future career and life goals. The process might seem daunting at first, but once you get started, the road map you create with your goals will help lead you down the path to success.
If you’d like more help defining your goals, read this article with SMART goal examples for students.
It's important to engage individual students in goal setting, monitoring and reflecting on their learning. Goals should be specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and time-based. SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time-based) goals are useful for all students.
Through self-assessment, students can identify specific actions to improve and plan their next steps. They can also define their short and long-term goals with increasing confidence. The role of the adult in this process is to:
model the setting of individual goals.
provide follow-up support.
give specific feedback on learning goals.
help students identify and record focused actions they can take to achieve their goals.
help students identify procedures they can use to monitor their own progress.
Resources: https://www.asvabprogram.com/media-center-article/65
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