SMART Goals: Measurable

Goals are part of our daily life, whether its your to-do list for the day or your 5 year plan! Its important to think about what you want to achieve from your goal in order to make it measurable.

I want to lose weight.

I want to run for longer.

I want to become stronger.

I want to travel more.

Each of these statements are goals but none of them are measurable.

To know if your goal is measurable, ask yourself "how will I know when I have achieved it?"

Goals are made so that we can progress from status A to status B. What if you don't know what status B is? How would you get there? How would you know once you have reached it?

Setting a measurable goal means:

• You know when you have achieved it

• You can easily track your progress

• You can map out a plan to achieve it

• If you don't get there, you can easily back track and see where you went wrong.

Lets revisit these statements. How would we turn them into measurable goals?

The key is a unit of measurement. Measurable goals should have something to count so that you are able to know where you stand and where you want to be.

I want to lose weight.

I want to run for longer.

I want to become stronger.

I want to travel more.

I want to lose 10 pounds.

I want to be able to run 10 miles.

I want to be able to lift 50 pounds.

I want to take 2 trips a year to new places.

Did you notice how the goals suddenly became clearer once we added a way to measure them?

Thank about one of your goals.

Can you measure it? How would you measure it? How far are you from it?