Newbies Tutorial: Turning Your SMART Goals into Actionable Steps

Last year, I wrote on making S.M.A.R.T. goals, which means your goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. I spoke clearly on how to do that in this post here. This post is written for the Newbies Initiative Tutorial Week 1, which is focused on goal layout for the next 3 months in which the programme will be running, and this time, we will be focused on what comes next after making a smart goal.

Over time, I have seen that just setting SMART goals is not enough to achieve them. This is because when we set SMART goals and publish them on the chain, we forget them there. We don't have a measure to keep in check to maintain consistency.

Let's take a smart goal, for instance:

Over the next three months, my goal on Hive is to reach a Hive Power of 21,000 HP. To achieve this, I'll publish at least three times a week and curate daily. With an average of 70 HP per week from author rewards, I aim to earn 280 HP per month and 840 HP in three months. Starting from my current Hive Power of 19,400 HP, I'll make monthly power-ups and rely on monthly curation rewards of around 120 HP.

This goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound, reflecting my dedication to Hive's growth, but yet there are still some things that need to be done in order to achieve this goal.

The first thing is to:

Write it on Paper

Aside from having your goals written down on your blog, you also need to have them accessible to you where you can see them physically and put them in your memory as a reminder that you have a goal you are chasing. If you don't put it to memory, it would be difficult to achieve this goal, as every action you take each day must contribute to taking you a step further to your goal. So you need to put it in writing. Let me have mine done below:

When you write your goals on paper, they are easily accessible compared to your blog. Find some place where you can easily see them every day. As you write it down, you will attain clarity on exactly what you want and be able to visualise your goals.

Just like I have done above, the second thing to note is:

List all actions that must be taken

I listed all the actions that must be taken so that I can further think about how I can fulfil these actions. If I want to blog three times weekly, then I must have a schedule for the days I want to publish each week instead of just merely saying it. You can choose any preferred day.

Most especially, it is best to set a preferred time you would be most comfortable writing your posts. Don't do this on the day you plan on writing your post; make sure you do it before the day or even before the week ahead.

As for me personally, I write my posts in the mornings, as this is the best time I can think freely. So what is yours?

One more important thing to note is:

To Keep Fueling Your Hunger

What makes people achieve a goal is not because they say it would be nice to have it, but because they make it a must to achieve it. So you need to be hungry for the goals you set and remind yourself why you need to achieve them.

Here is an exercise from what I learned from the book "Goals" by Brian Tracy: Every day when you wake up, write out all your goals before you begin all other major activity of the day. This would help you to remember not just all the goals you have to achieve, but your life generally, and would be of help in tailoring most of your actions of the day to one of those goals.

Track Your Progress by Creating Milestones

Creating milestones for your main goal is a good way to track your progress and give you the feeling of progress. For instance, if I have a goal of attaining 21,000 HP, I would break my goals into smaller goals and smaller deadlines.

For instance, my present HP is 19,460 HP then my goal for next month would be to achieve 20,000 HP. My target now is to make an addition of 500 HP and my deadline is the month end of October.

By November, I would be celebrating a milestone achieved, and then set a new milestone and a deadline.

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𝙰𝙱𝙾𝚄𝚃 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙰𝚄𝚃𝙷𝙾𝚁

_{Designed by @ grisvisa}

_{Starstrings01, also known as Giftedhands, attends the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta to study mechatronics engineering. He is a lover of the hive, a guitarist from Nigeria, and a student.}

_{His ambition on Hive is to be more than just an ordinary blogger; he wants to be someone with a purpose. That's why he started the newbies initiative @newbies-hive to help guide and support newbies. Please follow the @newbies-hive curation trail by clicking here.}