Student Series: SMART Goals and How to Use Them

Student Series: SMART Goals and How to Use Them

Kyrie Hemingson

Estimate reading time: 10 minutes

Setting goals gives you direction, purpose, and a clear roadmap for what you want to achieve. This will help you identify what needs to be done and get it done! Without goals, it’s easy to lose focus or spend time on unproductive tasks. Well-defined goals help track progress, boost motivation, and turn ideas into results. Setting “SMART” Goals is one way to do this!

What Are SMART Goals?

SMART is an acronym standing for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. In short, applying SMART to goal setting helps transform basic goals into realistic, motivating goals that use a so you are better able to achieve what you’re setting out to do.

Below, the acronym SMART will be broken down into components so you can see how you can create your own SMART goals and succeed!

S – Specific

In order for a goal to be specific it should answer these questions:

  • What exactly needs to be accomplished and what defines the goal as complete?
  • Who is responsible for the goal?
    • This question can be especially important when navigating a group project! Try to divide and conquer by being really specific with what the expectations are for each team member so you can all see success as a group
  • What steps need to be taken to achieve it?
    • Breaking things down into mini stepping stones can greatly help you achieve the main goal you are setting. This makes the main goal more likely to be reached because you are having smaller, digestible pieces rather than one massive goal that can be overwhelming

M – Measurable

In order for a goal to be measurable, you’ll need to come up with a quantifiable way to measure it. This will help you can track your progress and know when you’ve reached the finish line. The main questions to ask is:

  • What unit of measurement do we want to use to give our goal structure?
    • Another way to think of this question is: what evidence will show you that you’re making progress on, or finished with your goal
    • Similarly to “Specific”, you want to set milestones along the way so that you can evaluate your progress step by step and, if needed, adjust the methods you’re using to pursue your goal

A – Attainable

In order for a goal to be attainable, you should make sure your goal is actually realistic! This will involve some honest self-reflection in asking:

  • What does my past look like? How do my past habits and experiences affect the attainability of the current goal?

Ask yourself what your past track record looks like and how you can make sure the goal you’re setting reflects a mixture of your current motivation and your honest past. You can reach for the starts but if that’s completely unattainable then trying to achieve your goal may lead to disappointment and frustration. This may make it more likely that you may want to give up on your goal. By genuinely looking at how you did things in the past, you’ll be better able to set your future self up for success in setting goals that are really attainable.

For example, let’s say that you want to finish your class with a 90% overall but going into the final your overall grade is a 60%. If your final is worth 25% will you be able to make your goal? Plugging things into a final grade calculator, you’ll see you’ll need to get $180% on your final exam to finish the class with a 90%! That’s not very attainable. So you need to adjust your goal to the circumstances around the goal to ensure you’re still able to reach a gpa;. You can’t change that you are currently at a 60% and you can’t change that your final is worth 25%. Instead, let’s say you’re at a 60 overall and want to increase your grade 5% so that you’ll be at 65%. Now you have a more realistic goal and know that you need to do your best to reach 80% on your final based on the final grade calculator.

R – Relevant

In order for a goal to be relevant, you need to make sure it fits into the big picture. You should ask yourself:

  • What is your big picture?
  • Why is this goal being set in the first place, aka, why is it important to you?
  • Is this goal truly going to help you overall?

When asking what your big picture is, it can be helpful to think about what your overarching, long-term goals are. For example, maybe your long-term goal is to go to university and become a nurse. Or maybe you need a certain grade to get a scholarship. Maybe you have to look super far into the future and think about the places you want to travel to — travelling isn’t cheap! Maybe you despise going to class but need to in order to graduate. Sometimes when there are smaller goals that add up to our long-term goals, it can help to remember why we’re doing what we’re doing.

Sometimes it can be really helpful to take a hopeful approach to why things are relevant, especially when motivation is running low at the end of the year. Everyone’s big picture is different so it’s important to ask yourself what motivates you!

If you are ever needing some motivation, consider making a bucket list of things you want to do in life. Having a list of things of things you want to do can help remind you why you need to set goals for your future. 

Additionally, if you are a visual person, or just in general want to have a vision of what your goals and what motivates you are, consider creating a vision board and coming back to it when you’re having to remind yourself of why you keep going. Things to include in your individualized vision board so you can remember your big picture:

  • Places you want to go (the rocky mountains, Japan, Portugal, the Calgary Zoo, etc.)
  • Self-care you enjoy
  • What you want your current/future home to look like
  • Things you want to buy
  • Concerts or events you want to experience
  • Quotes that motivate you
  • People in your life that motivate you such as your parents, your children, your friends, your cat, etc.

Vision boards can take a physical form by printing things out and pinning them to a bulletin board, maybe near your desk where you study, or they can take virtual forms through apps like Pinterest, or using websites like Canva, or even pasting images in to a Google or Word document.

T – Time-Based

In order for a goal to be time-based, you’ll need to set some limits it your timing. Ask yourself:

  • What is the time-frame you have for achieving the milestones associated with your goal as well as your overarching goal?
    • Remember, in making your goals “specific” one of the questions you want to think about is how you can break your goal into mini goals so that your big goal is more digestible by taking things one step at a time. Consider setting time bounds on each of the smaller milestones you’ve created so that you can track your progress and get things done in a timely manner
  • What is the time-frame for determining that the actual goal was achieve, aka what is the deadline?
    • While your deadline might often be assigned to you, if it isn’t you have the power to decide when you want to complete your goal. For example, if you tend to procrastinate it may be better that you set the deadline for your goal to the day before the deadline your teacher assigned to make sure you do finish things on time

An Example of a SMART Goal in Action

Let’s say Jane wants to read more this summer to support her cognitive self-care and overall well-being. How can this goal of wanting to read more be turned into a SMART goal?

Using what you’ve just learned, try to answer these questions before looking at the example below:

  • Specific: What exactly needs to be accomplished and what defines it as being a completed goal? Who is responsible for it? What steps need to be taken to achieve it?  
  • Measurable: What unit of measurement does Jane want to use?
  • Attainable: What does Jane’s past look like? How does the past affect the attainability of her current goal?
    • For this example, let’s say Jane is a casual reader already so she often finishes a book every month or so even when not making a goal of trying to read more
  • Relevant: What is Jane’s big picture? Why is this goal being set in the first place? Is this goal truly going to help her overall?
  • Time-based: What is the time-frame for achieving the milestones associated with the goal? What is the time-frame for determining that the actual goal was achieved, aka, what is the deadline?

Here’s an idea of what this could look like for Jane:

  • Specific: read 4 books; Jane is responsible; reading a little every evening
    • To answer what exactly needs to be accomplished, Jane needs to read more. Jumping slightly to measurable, let’s specifically define “reading more” using number of books as the unit of measurement so specifically Jane is going to make her goal to read 4 books this summer and completely reading all 4 will define the goal as being completed. Jane is responsible for her goal and in terms of steps that will make this more digestible, Jane will set aside a set amount of time to read in the evenings, re-evaluating her progress after reading her first book  
  • Measurable: as defined in specific, unit of measurement = books, and Jane is going to specify that they are medium-sized (about 400 pages)
  • Attainable: Jane’s past history = ~1 book/month so her current goal with intentionality behind it is likely going to be attainable!
  • Relevant: the overarching goal or big picture is that Jane wants to support her cognitive self-care and overall well-being and reading is a way for her to do this
  • Time-based: since the goal is to “read more” this summer, Jane has July and August to read these 4 books which means that the start of school could be her deadline. With a goal of 4 books in 2 months, Jane needs to be finishing a book about every 2 weeks.
    • Let’s also build on defining what “reading a little every evening” under “specific” means. To make it time-based and very specific, let’s say that the 4 books Jane has chosen to read are all 300 pages. Google says that most people will take about 8 hours to read that. So 8 hours x 4 books is 32 hours. If we divide that in half it’s 16 hours of reading per month and with 4 weeks a month that’s 4 hours of reading for each week. With 7 days a week if Jane reads about 30-35 minutes a day she will reach her goal by the end of the summer

As we can see from this example, when creating SMART goals it’s normal to jump from letter to letter as each component supports the overarching goal you’re setting! For example, you may have to decide on a unit of measurement or the time you have to complete a goal to then make it more specific.

Do your best to be resilient in achieving your goal, and don’t be afraid to adjust things as you go along to keep your goal realistic and attainable!

Concluding Note

Now you know how to set SMART Goals, which will greatly help you succeed achieving your goals, no matter how large or small. Good luck!

Blog post adapted from the McKinney Psychology Presentation: Time Management as part of our Student Series. For more on our student series and other mental health blog posts, check out this link. For more information outside of this, please contact our office.