USE THE SMART SYSTEM THIS YEAR

Picture from headguruteacher.com

Hey guys! How are you all doing? Is it just me or is this January in particular one hell of a long month??? I mean, it feels like we've been here forever. I shouldn't be complaining though, I had many days to get myself in order. Please bear with me, I'm a little cough syrup drowsy but I will try to be as clear and simple as possible, this cough is one serious gangsta though, sigh.

About two or three weeks ago, I had an anxiety attack at the office. I just froze there feeling like I had wasted all my chances/days. I felt confused and lost and felt I needed an organizer again, I needed a time table to achieve all I had set out for the year or at least make progress. I needed to make progress on everything I had listed out. In my frozen state, I wasn't thinking straight so I had to reach out to a friend. He called me almost immediately and helped me through. He made me realize we were barely in the middle of the month and I was on the right track with my plans and he agreed that I needed a schedule to work with but I was most glad that he said all I had listed out to him were SMART goals and he believed that I could achieve them. That made me glad and I thought to share my process with you, and hopefully we can help one another whichever way possible.

Many of us have great ideas on what we want in life, our goals our plans our desires, but sometimes we get our heads in the cloud and don't break these desires down into achievable plans and so they sound ridiculous and remain a fairy-tale we never get to live. Take for instance you want to be a neurosurgeon by year XXXX, all you do is keep saying this with no step towards actually achieving this dream. You should do your homework; why do you want to be a neurosurgeon? what exactly does it take to be one -all the requirements, get them together, re-evaluate your plan, can you really get all these and be able to make it at the stated year? It could take you less or more years, point is you achieved success. Today, we will talk a little about breaking down our plans. First, I'll like to share the categories I broke mine into at the start of the year.

• God
• Family
• Career
• Business/Finances
• Academics
• Relationships/Friendships
• General Personal Development

I wanted a change - positive change in each of the above areas and so I listed them out and wrote my goal for each and broke the ones I could into tiny plans. My note was far from complete because I didn't quite break them down as much as I should have. You see, almost everything I wrote could be measured but I didn't put down time lines for each task under each plan, I just made it quite open ended by saying I wanted to achieve progress on each category this year. I also didn't state out each homework that would be required for some of these plans of mine but after my talk with my friend, I realized I had to do that and I have started with creating my time table and some sort of syllabus ( homework/research) to be covered under each so I know what I'm to do on what day under whatever category. Is this clear? Okay, for example - I have business research to do under business and finances, so instead of just going on Tuesday confused on what exactly I'm to touch that night, I would have used the time table creating period to list out all the areas I need to research on and distribute them on my time table so during execution time, I know on Tuesday 26th Jan, I'm to read up on the process of making product X or the market demand for that product/service - I hope this is clear. A simpler example perhaps will be under the God category - perhaps my aim is to read the entire Bible by the end of the year, I would have broken down how many chapters I would need to read daily or however to be able to complete the entire Bible by the end of the year and so the time allocated for Bible reading, I know I'm to read 4 chapters from the book of Proverbs perhaps. 

Now let's go into guidelines for writing down your plans. What are SMART goals? SMART is an acronym that stands for :

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Time-bound

Specific: Your goal should be specific. This means that you don't say, I want to be a million dollar richer by May. This means that you state exactly how you want to achieve this. Why do you want this in the first place; this could be your driving force when things get tough. What do you need to get in place and how do you use these as facilitators to achieving your goal, do your homework, do the math, cross your Ts and dot your Is and WRITE THEM DOWN. 

Measurable: It is wise to break your goals into measurable plans. For instance, you state that you want to have read 7 books in the Bible by the end of the first quarter or you want to sell 1000 crates of eggs every week. These are plans you can check at the end of every week and every quarter to ascertain if you are making progress according to plan or if some adjustments are needed. I was advised I make my evaluations/ self appraisal on a quarterly basis. 

Attainable: Are we building castles in the sky? This is where you ensure your plans are realistic. Yes, miracles happen, however, I will advise that you plan according to what you have on ground and what you will cumulatively gather as you keep working on your goals.

Relevant: This is the part of your plan that answer the "WHY" question. Is the reason for your wanting to achieve this goal of value to you and those around you? Is this just a childhood dream that holds no value or meaning? How will this dream change you or those around you? What do you aim to achieve personally from the success of this plan? 

Time-bound: Your plans should have an end, a stated time when you believe you should have reached your goal. Like I earlier stated, you could break them into monthly, quarterly evaluation periods so you don't get overwhelmed when your set time of completion is drawing nigh. 

Today is the last day in January and there is no law that states that you can't start over from February and if there is, then sue me because I am starting over. I'm rearranging my plans and going to start working with my time table and I hope you could take something from here as well that would help you get on with your plans. Let's make a difference this year. I truly truly wish you the very best in all your endeavors. One more thing, I chose to write down my plans with a pen and paper because psychologists say reading your own plans in your writing has a therapeutic effect on you and I have experienced this for myself so I'll advise you have both a hard and soft copy of your written plans. Again, I wish you nothing but success in all your plans and I hope you overcome all the challenges that will rise and come out victorious.

As always, kindly share your advice and experiences with us below. Till then, stay sharp and happy. Lots of love.