What is a SMART Goal?

The conscious mind – apparently about 10-20% of the mind, is the logical part.

The rest is the unconscious mind. We don’t have awareness of that a lot of the time, it’s where all the other things are.

Most issues are not logical they are in the unconscious mind – caused by the unconscious mind having made a decision. It’s generally not something that you’ve consciously or logically chosen.

When people come to see me to stop smoking, lose weight, get fitter etc... I use hypnotherapy to work with your unconscious mind. But I don't forget the conscious mind - that 10-20%, and a great tool to work with the conscious is - SMART Goals.

SMART is an acronym that stands for:

SPECIFIC- Without specific goals you risk losing any chances of goal attainment. This is where the 5 W’s come in handy: who, what, when, where, why. Answering each question will help you develop specific goals that inspire you to change for good.

MEASUREABLE - Having smaller milestones to track progress is instrumental in reaching your desired results. Setting metrics along the way will ensure you hammer away at your lifelong aspirations. You’ll actually be motivated to push on.

ACHEIVABLE- Setting unrealistic goals is a disaster waiting to happen. You’ll be highly unlikely to accomplish success. A better approach is to create achievable goals for yourself. But this doesn’t mean they should be easy—find the right balance in terms of difficulty. Doing so will ensure your goals and objectives aren’t far-fetched.

RELEVANT - Make sure your goals are aligned with your long term aspirations- develop goals that fully support your core values.

TIME-BOUND - Each one of your goals must have a timeline to keep you accountable. Without the time-bound aspect of SMART, there would be close to zero sense of urgency. As time goes on, you might even forget your goal altogether.