I am guilty as charged: i have taught on courses which have delivered the concept of SMART goals, and encouraged learners to adopt them.
SMART stands for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Timebound
Or something like that!
Some people apparently set some of their New Years resolutions according to the above, which is a bit odd IMO given that these are really rituals, not typically something I associate with corporate effieciency!
The Limits of SMART Thinking
The SMART system I think does have a place within organizational psychology, and it can get results in a target-oriented business environments, and that's primarily because the business environment lends itself to SMART targets.
Real life, by contrast, is messier, it's environmentally much more chaotic, and resolutions also tend to be linked to the bigger picture of changing deep seated habits.
SMART goals just don't fit here - making a goal SMART when the environment and the goal don't fit is going to mean failure.
They especially don't apply to New Years Resolutions... which are more an annual cultural reset, certainly not goals to be managed and tracked.
They are more akin to a re-invention of the self, something more akin to playing and transforming, experimenting, whereas SMART goals are firmly within an already existing frame!
And even if you blow a New Year's Resolution, even if you quit after three weeks —the ritual still does its job, it puts you back in control as the agent of your life.
Which, ironically is precisely the opposite of what SMART goals do!