Goals Should Be S.M.A.R.T.

Smart Goal acronyms are everywhere in the Cognitive world, with each letter usually having similar meanings. They are different, yet, they work from the same general subject.

Always, it begins with being Specific, and asking ourselves what do we want? It is usually the first step, in taking a general topic, and creating a more specified idea, out of that general topic. We can take a topic like, the desire to improve one’s health with a focus on the cardiac health. So, we may start with a broad, general goal, like that, and slimming it down to a specific goal of, “i want to start eating heart healthy tomorrow, as well as taking a brisk daily walk.

The letter M, meaning Measurable, is where we take into account, and focus, asking ourselves, how will we know, once that goal is met? Well, we can in turn, state that we want to keep our heart healthy diet, to no more then a certain amount of calories, and, for walking, like I do in my own life, I have an exact distance in mind, that I want to keep as my minimum. I have done the research to learn what a decent, healthy minimum distance walk is, and within an amount of time, that considers it, within a healthy goal.

So, letter A, is my goal Achievable? Well, what, type of numbers do I really want to put into my plan, so I don’t end up setting up a desired achievement that I don’t have the physical or mental power to accomplish? Smart Goals are not plans and ideas that are developed to set us up for failure.

So, we ask ourselves about letter R, and we work to find out, what type of goal, in a Cardiac sense are we realistically able to accomplish? Remember, I mentioned keeping a maximum number of daily calories as a goal to keeping at or under. Then, we get to the physical exercise, how much distance, within how much amount of time, minimum, do we have to try for, in order for the combination diet, and exercise, to make a difference, that we can measure.

We are talking about a measurement, in the short term, like, where do we want our weight, and endurance at within 3 months? Then, long term, where do we want to be one year from now? Or perhaps even 18 months from now?

That takes us, right into the last letter, T for timely. Like I just mentioned, where do we want to measure, daily food intake, exercise sessions, measuring, how long a distance, over how long a certain time period? Then, we take our plan into the future, where, like I mentioned, we measure our success of goals over short term, long term, and then eventually, we are on a permanent path where, our entire goal as a whole, was/is to improve our Total Cardiac Health. A goal, that if done right, will never have an end point, because, we really can’t get “too” healthy, in a Cardiac sense.

Start planning your SMART GOAL today.