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You Are Here: Home » Goals » Are Your New Year’s Resolutions SMART?

Are Your New Year’s Resolutions SMART?

Published or updated December 11, 2014 by Glen Craig

Measurable Goal

Kudos to you if you are still keeping up with your New Year’s resolutions! But most people who make New Year’s resolutions aren’t keeping them by month’s end.

Why? They weren’t SMART!

What are SMART goals?

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Attainable

R – Realistic

T – Time-Bound

Specific – Your goals should be as detailed and specific as possible.  It’s not enough to say you have a goal of saving lots of money.  You need to give it a figure like “I will save $3000 this year.”  Without specifics you are just floating out there.  If you only say your goal is to save then did you achieve your goal by putting fifty cents in a jar?  Didn’t accomplish much with that.

Measurable – To continue with the savings example, how will you get that $3000?  In one lump sum?  Or perhaps in measurable terms like “I will save $250 a month.  This will be $125 from each of my pay periods in the monthly.”  Being able to measure your progress will help you move along in your goal.

Attainable – Can you achieve this goal?  Will you be able to break it up into smaller achievements that will add up to the goal?  In our example we save $125 per paycheck in order to attain the big goal of $ 3000 in savings for the year.

Realistic – Do you believe your goal can be reached?  For our example you have to be able to save $250 a month.  If you currently only save about $50 a month then you either have to figure out a way to squeeze out more savings or you might need to make your goal more realistic.  When a goal is unrealistic you’ll become frustrated before long and give up the goal.

Time-Bound – Give yourself a pre-determined time frame for your goal.  Back to out example – It’s great to want to save $3000 but it’s very different to do that in year and to do it in ten years.

The SMART system is a great guideline for you to set goals with.  Ask yourself if your New Year’s resolutions are SMART.  If they are you have a much better chance of accomplishing them!

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Creative Commons License photo credit: Laineys Repertoire

Filed Under: Goals Tagged With: New Year Resolutions, Saving, SMART Goals

About Glen Craig

Glen Craig is married and the father to four children that he spends the day chasing as a stay-at-home-dad. He took an interest in personal finance when he realized most of his paycheck was going toward credit card bills. Since then he's eliminated his credit card debt and started on a journey towards financial freedom.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. James says

    January 7, 2009 at 10:55 am

    Is there an abbreviation for Dumb? I’m pretty sure that I follow that one.

    James’s last blog post..Tax Season: Tax Deductions

    • ffb says

      January 7, 2009 at 11:31 am

      @ James – Haha. Would you believe there is though? D – Doable U – Understandable M – Manageable B – Beneficial. DUMB. I was always fond of KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. Kinda reminds me to not over complicate things.

  2. Jarod says

    January 7, 2009 at 11:55 am

    I agree with your acronym and the definitions for being SMART with your resolutions.

    I work with people in debt all the time and I hear things like, “my resolution will be to pay off these high interest cards”. But they aren’t SMART about it and year after year they become deeper in the struggle with debt.

    Great advice for anyone serious about their resolutions, or any goal in general.

  3. Craig says

    January 7, 2009 at 1:40 pm

    Great advice you hear all the time but can’t hear enough. My goals are more small but would like to accomplish them, hopefully I am being SMART with them.

    • ffb says

      January 7, 2009 at 1:53 pm

      @ Craig – It doesn’t matter how big or small your goals are. Implemented correctly you can accomplish all of them!

  4. Miranda says

    January 7, 2009 at 2:56 pm

    Love this! A reminder that we really can accomplish almost anything if we put our minds to it — and make a plan.

    Miranda’s last blog post..Financial News: U.S. Deficit Likely to Hit $1.2 Trillion

    • ffb says

      January 7, 2009 at 2:58 pm

      @ Miranda – There you go! It’s not just that we want something to happen but that we put a real plan in place for it to happen.

  5. Eliminate Debt Blog says

    January 7, 2009 at 6:00 pm

    This is where I failed last year. I did not set goals that I could realistically achieve and never made them measurable.

    I learned a lot in 2008 that I will now start to implement. This year will be the year I remembered I got rid of my debt.

    • ffb says

      January 7, 2009 at 6:04 pm

      @ EDB – Sounds good!

  6. James says

    January 8, 2009 at 10:19 am

    Here is another acronym for DUMB. I had to laugh a little bit when I saw it. I didn’t know there were so many.

    http://www.nodebtplan.net/2009/01/07/dont-let-your-goals-be-dumb-have-smart-goals/

    James’s last blog post..Tax Season: Tax Deductions

    • ffb says

      January 8, 2009 at 1:24 pm

      @ James – That’s a good one!

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Glen CraigI'm Glen Craig - I used to live paycheck-to-paycheck, drowning in credit card debt. I turned that all around and now I build wealth rather than debt.

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