Four Reasons Why S.M.A.R.T. Goals Aren’t So Smart Anymore

Remember when coffee shops were all the rage? Starbucks hadn’t popped up on every corner yet, so local, Central-Perk-ish type places were everywhere. Around the same time, Barnes & Noble came to my hometown of Oklahoma City, and opened two locations, complete with coffee shops. Since I had just received the keys to my first car (a lovely circa 1990 GMC Jimmy, white, with a two-tone blue replacement tailgate), and needed a place to hang out, my friends and I would escape to these coffee shops.

Barnes & Noble knew what they were doing. The coffee shop next to the bookstore was a brilliant idea. I’d grab my coffee, and browse the magazines, the hobby section, and the fiction section, but what really lured me in was the self-help section. Because I was on a 16 year-old’s budget, I’d sit on the floor in the aisles and read while I drank my coffee.

Turns out, there was a world of authors out there willing to tell me how to live my life, and I was the sucker they were looking for.

I didn’t read too much of it, since my budget was limited, and I was still mostly into Grace Livingston Hill fiction stuff at that point, but the coffee shop at that Barnes and Noble was where I first met with the idea of S.M.A.R.T. goals.

I didn’t question it, at first. S.M.A.R.T. goals sounded nice, and the gurus surely knew what they were talking about. Millions of people said S.M.A.R.T. goals were the way to go. Whomever came up with this S.M.A.R.T. goals concept was older and wiser than I was. So I leaned in, set some “smart goals”, and then went about my life, thinking I had done the work, so I must be on the right path, and the other pieces would fall into place.

A million people can’t be wrong, right?

Over the next few years, I went to a few high school and college leadership seminars, retreats, workshops. I think we set S.M.A.R.T. goals at every one of them, so I started a Goals Notebook, where I could keep all my goal notes and lists, and I kept going about life.

After I started my first business, we started setting S.M.A.R.T. goals as a team. It was a fun way to get a day off of work, so my team loved it. But as time crept on, I started to realize that we weren’t seeing results. Or, if we were, those results weren’t getting us where we needed to go. Or, we’d end up where we THOUGHT we needed to be, only to realize it wasn’t where we wanted to be.

At the same time, I saw the same things happening with my personal goals as well. I’d set my goals, using the S.M.A.R.T. goals framework, and then they’d sit, collecting dust and being successfully ignored, until I finally realized the smartest thing I could do with them was chunk them in a trash can.

I had to ask myself why they didn’t work.

1. S.M.A.R.T. goals are arbitrary. At a final point of my frustration, I found myself sitting in a workshop where the leader said, “Now it’s time to write your goals down!” I wanted to throw my pen down in frustration, because I knew there were multiple uncompleted goal lists at home. Adding another random list of “smart” goals to the top of that pile wasn’t going to solve anything.
2. S.M.A.R.T. goals aren’t balanced. As I looked back at all my “smart” goals, I recognized a common theme: they were all about business. Over the course of my years of setting “smart” goals, not a single goal had anything to do with my personal life, or relationships. My goal list was making my life out-of-balance.
3. S.M.A.R.T. goals don’t take your strengths and weaknesses into account. I could set a goal to be a nuclear physicist, but the truth is, I don’t have the passion, foundation, or skill set to make that goal happen.
4. S.M.A.R.T. goals don’t take into account your current life. We all have to-do lists of stuff that needs to get done, already. We don’t need to make a goal list that just adds to our to-dos. We need to look at our to-dos and ask ourselves if those actions are helping us get to where we want to go.

It turns out, over the years, the concept of S.M.A.R.T. goals has been adapted, revised, and added to. Did you know you can have S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goals? (Don’t kill me, I just rolled my eyes, too.)

I don’t want to be yet another person telling others how to live their lives, but I had to figure out a better way. I loved goals and I wanted to set goals, but I wanted the goals that I set to not just be achievable: I wanted them to get done, and I wanted them to help me move towards a vision, a bigger picture.

And S.M.A.R.T. goals just didn’t seem to cut it.

I wanted to set goals that encompassed every area of my life, but I didn’t want to over-complicate the areas of my life. Turns out that the gurus talk about life balance a lot as well, so I did a bit of research to see what the basic areas of life needed to be targeted in order to set balanced goals.

I also wanted this to be easy for me to remember. So, for my goals, I started using the acronym of H.E.A.R.T. goals to help me identify and set goals that wouldn’t be arbitrary, would recognized every area of my life.

Now, I make sure to set goals according to these life segments:

1. H – Help Yourself. In 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey starts with personal accountability (be proactive, you have a choice, take responsibility for that power of choice), and ends with personal growth (sharpen the saw, take care of yourself). It really does start and end with you. Put your own oxygen mask on first. This can include sleep (eight hours a night), exercise (just go for a walk if you don’t see yourself becoming a gym-rat), journaling time (all the giants have done it, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Dave Ramsey), quiet time.
2. E – Everyone Else. I personally believe that there are two things that are eternal in this world: the word of God and the souls of other human beings. Theology aside, people matter above profits, above power, above prestige. People also matter in a certain order, from immediate family on out. People are easy to prioritize. Don’t complicate it.
3. A – Attitude & Academics. One of the unifying factors of successful people is that they NEVER. Stop. Learning. In fact, it’s practically their pastime and hobby. They’re always reading books, talking with other people about books they’ve read, going to workshops. They are personally aware that they haven’t yet figured it all out, and they are always on the hunt for education and growth. Their spirit is hungry and humble, as I once heard New York Times best-selling author Donald Miller say.
4. R – Resources. We can’t neglect the finite and important things in life: time, money, and energy. Energy should be managed in the first point, Help Yourself. Time should be carefully managed on a daily basis. But money does require special stewardship, and that’s where the resources segment comes in. At a ropes course one time, the facilitator once counseled our team: if you don’t use your resources, you lose them. Steward finances well.
5. T – Trade & Business. This is last, and all too often we set out so quickly in this world to make it first. Don’t. It’s last. You, your people, your personal growth, and the management of your resources all come before your work and your business. The only time Trade ever comes before anything else is when you have to put in that extra push of intense energy to get something off the ground. Jon Acuff calls this the 5 a.m. Club, and recommends getting up an hour earlier every day to work on your dream. Yes, you’ll sacrifice sleep to do it, but don’t get accustomed to that habit—sleep is so important, and after your idea is off the ground, you’ll need to return to best practices.

So do I think S.M.A.R.T. goals are bad? No, I just think they’re not enough. All goals still need to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-sensitive, but setting H.E.A.R.T. goals will keep your life in balance, and make sure your goals are on the right track.

So, what goals are you setting for 2015? Share in the comments, or tag me on Instagram and use #2015heartgoals as a hashtag!

In a few weeks, we’ll open up registration for Well-Designed Year again. We’ve done two private launches, so far, and the response has been great. If you’re interested in learning more, sign up at whitneyenglish.com/well-designed-year for more information!