Setting SMART targets

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Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your business goals? Do they seem many aeons away? Many galaxies away? Too distant? Too untouchable? Too far into the future? You may feel demotivated and lack that commitment that gets you to the end point. You're not alone, folks, in this week's podcast of I Hate Numbers, I'm going to be talking to you about SMART targets. Smart targets are going to help you get to your end goal. It's going to break it down into manageable chunks and it's going to make the anxiety dissipate and that overwhelm feel like it's being thrown away into the trash bin of memories.

:: 00:40

You're listening to the I Hate Numbers podcast with Mahmood Reza. The I Hate Numbers Podcast mission is to help your business survive and thrive by you better understanding and connecting with your numbers. Number love and care is what it's about. Tune in every week. Now, here's your host, Mahmood Reza.

:: 01:06

Hi, folks. Welcome to another weekly episode of I Hate Numbers, the podcast that's got a mission. It's got a mission to help improve your money mindset, increase your financial awareness, help your business and you save tax and time. What a wonderful combination we have there. Let's crack on with this week's podcast. Now, sometimes people's goals are too vague, too distant. Many business owners lack that commitment or get demotivated because the goals seem far too difficult to reach.

:: 01:33

Now, setting smart targets can help make that goal seem and feel much more achievable. Those smart targets provide focus and act as a stepping stone towards those final goals. Now, what do we mean by the idea of smart? Well, the idea of smart, the mnemonic SMART stands for specific measurable, acceptable, relevant and time bound. And through this podcast, I'm going to share a couple of examples where we can set smart targets and you can apply that to your own business and your own experiences.

:: 02:09

Just imagine what it would feel like to achieve your end goal. Visualise yourself getting into that finishing line. Smart targets will help get you there. Now, what do we mean by the idea of being smart? Now, we said the S is for specific. What that means is you've got to articulate, act in a statement of affirmation exactly what you will be doing, what needs to be done, avoid wording. So I might do this, make positive statements and using that word will must do as positive affirmations.

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Measurable is the M. And you've got to have a visualisation and clarity of what your success actually looks like to you. Avoid vagueness and make sure it's capable of being recognised. Make sure it's capable of being identifiable. If you have no idea what that idea of success looks like, and you cannot measure it, either by observation, numbers, by survey or whatever, then you will find that it's going to be beyond your grasp. Thirdly, A is accepted, and that's got to be accepted by everybody involved in the process, most specifically yourself. R is for realistic and realism is literally something that's appropriate for your situation.

:: 03:22

You've got to realise that it's practical what you're setting yourself out to achieve and the steps that you have to undertake to get to that. Just hang on a few moments folks and we're going to drill down in a couple of examples to illustrate the smart target setting. And lastly they've got to be time bound. You've got to commit yourself, you've got to set out your store and say when you are going to achieve those targets. So we've got smart specific measurable accepted, realistic and time bound. So let's share a couple of examples of setting smart targets.

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Now the two examples I want to set is one where you decide that one of your goals is that you wish to be fit. The second example we're going to share by the side in parallel is where you as a business owner set yourself a goal of improving your wellbeing, an absolutely critical thing to do for any individual, let alone any business owner. Now for that individual, for you, if you wish to be fit or increase your fitness then your specific thing is notice the affirmation that is I will increase how much exercise I do.

:: 04:33

We don't want negative statements – we want statements of affirmation. If we draw that same parallel with a business, it may be the specific is, I will increase the amount of downtime on my tech or using my phone. Let's go back to the person who wishes to be fit as their goal and the measurable thing is they may set themselves a target saying I will do an average of 30 minutes of moderate intense activity per day. We can certainly measure that outcome. We can measure that 30 minutes. In the context of our business owner, the measurability may be stopping looking at their phone, stopping checking your emails after say 08:00 p.m. of an evening.

:: 05:16

Let's think about A. A is what's accepted by those in the process, specifically yourself. Your action statement, your acceptance statement is, I can see myself doing it. I'm going to be doing it with a friend. Have that degree of visualisation and make it something that's acceptable and taken on by yourself. In the context where you wish to improve your wellbeing, then you can see yourself doing it. And you may rope in the support of family and friends to roll their eyes at you when you don't turn your phone off.

:: 05:48

The R in the goal, the aspiration of wanting to be fit is you will walk daily, you may go to the gym twice a week. When we look at the example of increasing wellbeing is you can do it by telling your client or staff, communicating with them that you are going to be having some downtime. The last is time bound within the time frame that you set yourself. You may say it in the context of fitness, that you will achieve all this by the end of September. Obviously, the dates I'm making up, but you see my point.

:: 06:21

In the same situation, the same breath, when we look at increasing and improving well being, you will achieve that within a two month cycle. Now, is that two months? Again, relevant? You've got to make sure that fits. So let's just summarise what we've got there, folks. Person A who wants to be fit will increase the amount of exercise they do. You will do an average of 30 minutes of moderate, intense activity every day. You can visualise yourself doing it. You may even do that with the support of a friend.

:: 06:51

You're going to do it by walking daily, going to the gym twice a week, and you're going to set yourself an aspiration to do it by the end of September. To improve your wellbeing, you will increase your phone downtime, you will stop checking your emails after 08:00. You can visualise yourself doing it. You may even rope in the support of your family and friends. You will inform your clients, your staff, that you will be doing that as well. And you're going to achieve that within a two month framework.

:: 07:19

Now, just imagine, folks, setting those smart targets, they are indicators of the journey that we take. Those are markers. And setting smart targets means that as we progress on our journey, ultimately going towards our Northern Star at any point here, it gives us things that we can tick off. Now, the advantage of a target over a goal is, a goal you either hit it or you don't. If you have an aspiration to achieve a certain level of profitability, a near miss doesn't count. You've either achieved it or you don't. If you set yourself a target, you're allowed parameters, you're allowed deviations around the main central target. Imagine a game of darts.

:: 07:58

If you hit the board, you still get some points. If you aim for your centre ball's eye and you get that fantastic. But deviations to either side are still acceptable, so targets will cut you some slack. Targets will not drown you and make you feel overwhelmed. They won't make you feel anxious. And they can reinforce and support the steps you're doing to achieve your end point. Folks, I hope you found this podcast useful. If you did, I'd love it if you could share it with those who you feel will benefit. Give me some feedback and subscribe so you don't miss out on any weekly updates. Check out the show notes with some links to some additional resources that you'll find useful. And until next week, smart target setting.

: 00:08:43

We hope you enjoyed this episode and appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show. We hope you got some value. If you did, then we'd love it if you shared the episode. We look forward to you joining us next week for another I Hate Numbers episode.