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Tag Archives: SMART acronym

Daily Ramblings – Spread Your Wings Sunday – Week of December 6, 2020

06 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by Dave Gardner in Spread Your Wings

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2021, challenge, Goals, Planning, SMART acronym, spread your wings Sunday, Sunday

Weekly Challenge: This week’s challenge is to begin working on a rough draft of your yearly goals for 2021. As a reminder, assume you will experience random lockdowns throughout 2021, until the new vaccines are widespread. I read yesterday that vaccines, at least in the U.S., are going to be prioritized to medical personnel, and other front-line first-responders.

Also, as a reminder, use the S.M.A.R.T. acronym. S-specific, M-measurable, A-attainable, R-realistic, T-time bound. This will allow you to gauge your efforts and measure your results. Many of my friends who do not use this end up having difficulty seeing how they are doing or figuring out how to move forward because they are missing one of the key points of this acronym. Try it out.

Here’s an example. One of my goals for 2021 will be to read 60 books by December 31, 2021. This is an example of a SMART goal. It is specific (read 60 books); it is measurable (use the number 60); it is attainable (I read over 70 books this year); it is realistic (5 books in a month), which is easy for me, and it is time bound (by December 31, 2021).

Good luck!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Setting Goals

29 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by Dave Gardner in Motivation Monday

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Tags

Discipline, Drive, Goals, Monday, motivation, Persistence, Setting Goals, SMART acronym

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.

Tony Robbins

I set yearly goals each year. Last year I achieved most of them. This year I was on track. But then…you know the rest of the story. Covid-19 has put a damper on a lot of things, particularly now that it is back. But the goals I have set that Covid didn’t disrupt are all on track.

Setting goals gives us direction. They require us to decide about what we want to achieve. Once we’ve done this, however, we are on autopilot.

If you’ve never set goals before, just keep in mind the SMART acronym. This acronym stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. If you’d like to read about it and watch a short video, here is the link.

I think the most important benefit I receive when I set a goal is the ability to see where I am and how to finish the rest of the journey. Try it out. You won’t be sorry.

Here is my week:

Physical – I will concentrate on shoulders this week. Every day I will exercise shoulders and do nothing else (See workout routine)

Mental – Learn, read, write, and journal

Spiritual – read my Bible, do my spiritual exercises, do my discourse work, and share my goodwill to all

Social – post uplifting quotes and articles to my social media feeds, interact with friends and family wherever possible

That’s it for today, folks. Have a great Monday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday

11 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by Dave Gardner in Spiritual Saturday

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Tags

Achievement, decisions, Goals, Planning, SMART acronym

“The way to work with Divine Spirit in our daily decisions is to consider quite honestly: What would I really like to do?

One must put aside thoughts of asceticism, thinking that God loves us more if we are poor. A business decision must be made using all input that’s available. What’s good for me, my family? It must allow one to grow.

Any decision is not without setbacks, for that’s the nature of life. What sets you apart is that you give it your best effort and more, staying open to the subtle nudges of Divine Spirit.”

—Harold Klemp The Language of Soul

When was the last time you gave some thought to your life? What are you doing? Where are you going? What goals you have set for yourself? I found this to be the most difficult thing to do—to really understand what I wanted in life and where I wanted to go.

It really comes down to deciding. Decisions commit us to something. They say, “I’m going this way or that.” Sometimes it is easy to second-guess ourselves into believing that we may have decided too quickly, but we must realize we have the flexibility to change our minds. The key: 1) decide and 2) stick with it for a bit to really determine if it is something you want to do. More importantly, is it something you are willing to pay the price for (sacrifice, money, time, etc.).

Once you make your decision, you’ll find that tackling the task at hand will be easier. You won’t have to think about what you are doing, because you’ve decided. The focus this brings is liberating.

With focus, you’ll also gain access to little insights that will help you pursue your goal more efficiently. Make sure you write down any ideas that come through, particularly if you’ve hit a roadblock. This happens from time-to-time as we pursue something new. Expect it.

Steps:

  • Decide which goals you want to pursue
  • Make the best plan you can with the information and skillset you have
  • Execute, adjusting your plan and resources as you go
  • Mission accomplished, next…😊

These steps will help you accomplish anything you set your mind to. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Well, this is fine, Dave. What about multiple goals?”

The same steps apply, but you will have to allocate enough time to planning for each goal and executing toward each goal as you see fit. I would recommend picking the highest, most important goal you have and moving forward on that first. Once you have gained some traction, feel free to add more goals into the mix. One warning: Do not overwhelm yourself by pursuing too many goals at the same time or at least pick goals that contribute to one another.

Here are some examples:

Pursue a writing career (writing books), blogging, and freelance writing (all three goals align with another around the skill of writing).

Lose weight, get in shape, and eat right. Again, you can see the alignment between all these goals.

Each goal must be what is called S.M.A.R.T. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria

  • S – Specific
  • M – Measurable
  • A – Assignable
  • R – Realistic
  • T – Time-related

Example Goal:

S – grow to 500 followers on Daily Ramblings by year’s end (2018)

M – 500 followers on WordPress.com

A – not applicable in this case

R – Yes, it is a realistic goal.

T – Yes, the time for achieving this goal is the end of 2018.

Well, that’s it for today folks. I hope you learned something and decide to pursue a goal you’ve been putting off.

Until next time…

Dave

 

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Daily Ramblings – Daily Quote – Karen Lamb – SMART Goal Setting

18 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by Dave Gardner in Quotes

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Goal Setting, Mental, Physical, SMART acronym, Social, Spiritual

Today’s Quote:

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” – Karen Lamb

Regret. It is a bad feeling, particularly when you beat yourself up over it. Don’t. We make decisions. Sometimes they are bad. Sometimes they are good.

Learn from them. Make adjustments.

Goal Setting, pursuing goals, and all the rest is a personal preference. Start on those goals, but stick with those goals you can knock out in 90-100 days. If you have a big goal like getting a degree, that’s ok. Break this big goal down over each of these 90-day periods. Perhaps, your goal would be to get an A in your class.

Goals should cover a few areas. I like to focus on four key areas for my goals. Mental – learn something new; Physical – workout; Social – make new friends and network; Spiritual – read my Bible daily and meditate. To measure these I set specific goals that I can track. By setting a timetable, I try to set achievable goals that I can meet with effort in 13 weeks. If you haven’t heard about it, there’s a great acronym for goal setting. It’s called S M A R T.

  • Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
  • Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
  • Achievable (agreed, attainable).
  • Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
  • Time-bound (time-based, time-limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).

Bullets above are from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/smart-goals.htm

Check this link out for more detail. Here’s an example for my Mental area.

I will read 3 non-fiction books by Feb 1, 2018, to learn more about writing novels. 

This goal is specific to learning (Mental), it is measurable (3 books is 3 books), it is achievable (reading a chapter a day), relevant to my future writing career, and time-bound (due on February 1, 2018). This is as simple as it gets. You can set these goals for any area of your life. Try this out. Start out simple. Maybe you can only pursue 1 goal for the next 13 weeks. Figure out the total amount of work you have to do and spread it out monthly, weekly, and daily. You’ll be amazed how much you can get done. You’ll also be amazed how quickly you’ll attain some of your goals with the right daily focus.

That’s it for today!

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

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