In this article I am going to discuss why you need to check and make sure that any goals you set for yourself or your business or indeed others, need to be SMART goals. Without those 5 areas being met you will waste time and energy and ultimately become despondent.
When I was working offline there were times when I would be set a target and as an incentive my commission rate would increase if I hit it.
Incentives are great but if the target is beyond your control how can you achieve it? Powerless, that's how I felt. Frustrated too.
In many businesses, managers forget that any target needs to be reachable - it must be within that persons capability of achieving. If not, then something that is supposed to spur you on has the opposite effect - it turns you off and your output goes down.
So what are these 5 areas and how can you apply them?
Specific
Target a specific area for improvement. You must be able to define it. What area in your business needs improving? Can you describe it in detail? Can you pin point it?
Unless you know exactly what your goal is then you will easily become distracted and go off course.
Do you need more website visitors? If so, to what web page?
Do you need more subscribers? If so, then what traffic source(s) will you use?
Do you need more sales? If so, then what product and to whom?
Measurable
You need a way to measure whether you have achieved it or not. You need to be able to know whether or not you have achieved the goal in a way that you can measure so that you know you are on track.
So how many visitors? How many subscribers? How many blog posts?
Attainable
It must be possible! It must be within your ability to achieve. Do you have control of the situation or do you need to rely on someone else? If you are dependent on someone else then how will you make sure that they do what they are supposed to do?
It's hard. Sometimes you just have to do it yourself until you have found a reliable resource.
My advice is to set yourself goals that you have complete control over. Yes, the buck stops with you but at least you have a chance of attaining it.
Realistic
This is perhaps one of the hardest parts. We can get carried away with our dreams and set a goal that in reality we can't achieve. If you only have a few hours each day to work on your business then you must take that into account.
If you need to take time out for child care then take it into account. It is far better to set a smaller goal that is realistic than to set something too big and never get there. You'll become stressed out and feel like a failure.
Time-related
Set a time that you want the goal to be completed by. It's good to have a dead line as it motivates you to take action. Perhaps a monthly goal would work well for you.
By the way are you fed up promoting other peoples products? Do you want to have your own? If so then download my brand new free eBook on how to maximize your profits by creating your own high quality products quickly: Super Fast Product Creation
Or visit My Blog for more step by step help.
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