Why You Fail At SMART Goals and What To Do About It.

What are SMART goals?  For those who need a reminder, S.M.A.R.T is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable,  Realistic, and Time-bound. Anyone interested in self-improvement has come across tools for setting SMART goals, but despite workshops, seminars, and legions of gurus,  most people still fail at them.

Why?

After looking through my monthly diary and daily journal entries at failed goals that appeared easy, I’ve found six things that lead to failure.  Read them and see if there are any similarities as to why you failed with your SMART goals:

1.   Scope Creep
2.   Aspirations Are Not Goals
3.   Multiple Targets Are Hard to Hit
4.  The Goal Is Not Yours
5.   Where, When and What
6.  Negotiations Break (You) Down

So, how to fail less and succeed more? Read on.

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The first thing to remember is that failure is like success, it builds upon itself. The more we fail, the more we feel like a failure, so we give up. It’s also the same with success. The more you succeed even at the smallest part of your goal, the more likely you are to continue trying. 

In our personal lives, goals cause us to focus our attention, provide motivation, and create a sense of well-being.  Failing at a goal you’ve set for yourself is mentally painful but rarely fatal.

For the purpose of this post though, I’ll use an example where failure is sometimes fatal. 

Every year, millions of people around the world promise to ‘Get fit’ but most won’t achieve it.  This is one of the most common New Year’s resolutions.  Let’s use this to explore the components of failure.

Aspirations  Are Not Goals

Not every goal it’s really a goal, some are just aspirations. what’s the difference? An aspiration is close to a wish. There are no terms and conditions to apply. “Getting fit”, “Eating healthy”, “Exercising more” are all aspirations. 

As far as goal-setting goes,  they at least provide a category on which to focus your efforts.  The problem is, what do they mean?  Exactly, what does it mean to be fit? What healthy foods will you eat regularly?  How can you exercise ‘more’ if you don’t exercise at all?

A goal is achieved as a consequence of action.

Scope Creep

In an effort to ‘get fit’, you decide to do two push-ups each morning before you go to work.  By the end of the month, you feel so good that you commit to adding one additional push-up each week. This means that at the beginning of next month you will be doing three pushups per day and by the end of the month, you will be doing seven. Great!

Three months later, you quit.  A part of your brain knows it never planned to do almost 50 pushups per day 11 months from now. In your exuberance, you set mental dynamite at the foundation of your goal.   This is where overachievers and perfectionists are most likely to fail, they believe that anything worth doing is worth overdoing. 

Multiple Targets Are Hard to Hit

Continuing with the example of wanting to be fit, there is an extremely wide range of possible goals in this aspiration. Some examples would be to walk a mile every day, eat an apple as a midday snack, go to bed before 11:00 pm, or drink less coffee. Each of these is a clearly defined goal that can be achieved with planning and effort.

The problems begin when we try to do all of the above at the same time.  The constant use of mental energy to monitor what we SHOULD be doing at any given moment leads to decision fatigue.

Resolutions are like children on a tour of a fireworks factory, they need to be watched closely. Using that analogy, it’s easy to see why the fewer the better.    Working on a small number of important goals allows each to take root and grow. 

The Goal Is Not Yours

– In the June/July 2020 edition of Philosophy Now magazine, Ken Hines (Meaning in The Executive Suite) states, 

“……. generations of theologians, psychologists, sociologists, even cultural theorists, have weighed in on the topic {the meaning of life}. But in our own time, a new authority has emerged: corporate management. From their posh digs in the executive suite, these industrial titans try to define the meaning of life for their employees; and they do so transparently and bluntly. . . .”

 Despite insistence by C – Level executives to the contrary, this new strategy is not going well.  This is because your mission, and your core values, are your own. 

Don’t set a goal to do aerobics if you think jumping up and down on one spot looks foolish.  Don’t start a diet you hate just because your favourite internet guru told you to do it.  Setting a goal you don’t believe in for the benefit of others is like promising someone else that you’ll fly to the moon by flapping your arms.

What, When, Where (The Big Three)  

Did you answer the questions of when will you be working on this goal, where will you be working on this goal, what actions will you be taking to reach this goal?  if these questions are not fully answered while doing the SMART goal setting exercise, the habits of your daily routine will reach into the crib of your newborn goals and strangle them.

This is why so many goals/resolutions die, we simply don’t make a plan to insert them into our daily lives.

Negotiations Break (You) Down –

In “Small Move, Big Change” the author offers this advice on why it’s necessary to make resolutions easy, ………..”You’ll begin to bargain with yourself over the scope of the commitment, renegotiating your resolution on a daily basis.  Maybe walking five days a week is too much; how about three days?  Maybe you weren’t able to walk today, but how about tomorrow?  If tomorrow is as good as today, why not the day after tomorrow? . . . . .pretty soon you find yourself at the weekend wondering how it is you didn’t manage to walk a single day.”

Each time you mentally renegotiated your goals based on how you felt in the moment, you moved closer to the complete abandonment of them.

What To Do

Understand that writing out your SMART goals is just the beginning. Each of them will need to be examined closely and a decision made on whether they should be pursued. 

You have to set and achieve your goals to reach your aspiration. Aspirations are not goals in themselves, know the difference.

Have clarity on what, when, and where each action will be done. If you are vague about these three things, you have less chance of completion.

Refuse to negotiate with yourself. Set a goal that is easy in its implementation and stick to getting it done. Keep in mind that you are the most untrustworthy negotiator. Either you will try to get more than you are willing to give (scope creep) or talk yourself into not making it important enough to get it done (breaking down).

Learn to limit the number of your important goals. More than four at a time is too many.

Let me know what you think about this post, or if I missed anything in the comment section.

Next month: “Motivation. How to get some.”