DUMB Goals: Your Secret for Doing More of What You Want to Do

My issue with SMART goals — and what I’ve decided to do instead

SMART goals have been the goal-setting Gospel since 1981, when George T. Doran introduced the idea.

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Sounds good enough, right?

With all due respect to Mr. Doran, I think we’ve put too much stock in a single framework that isn’t always what we need as the answer to our goal-setting questions.

In recent years, the concept of SMART goals has drawn more criticism as people realize that even within that framework, goals can fall through the cracks. Our human shortcomings can prevent progress towards a previously determined objective.

SMART goals, in my experience, have two main problems:

(1) We usually set too many at a time and

(2) They just aren’t that motivating.

DUMB goals don’t aim to fix all of those problems, but they provide an important alternative and new perspective.

I don’t want my life to be a series of checked boxes of achievements of things I knew I was going to do anyway. I want my life to be about going in a certain direction and…