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How SMART are your family’s goals?

Pick a goal, any goal. Do you and your family want to eat healthier? Exercise more? Spend more quality time together? Setting goals are linked with higher motivation, self-esteem, self-confidence and autonomy, and, research has shown a strong connection between goal-setting and success.

Whatever your goal is, we have some advice to help you achieve it. And they key lies in being smart. SMART is a well-established tool that you can use to plan and achieve your goals. It helps to clarify your ideas, focus your efforts, use your time and resources well and increase your chances of achieving them.

Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Relevant
Time-bound

Let’s say, as an example, that you and your family want to boost your mental wellbeing. Now, let’s turn this into a SMART goal.

Specific

Your goal should be clear and specific, otherwise you won’t be able to focus your efforts or feel truly motivated to achieve it. Specific means you know what needs to be done, why it’s important, who is responsible, where it’s located and which resources you need.

EXAMPLE: As a family, we want to improve our mental wellbeing by practicing mindfulness, specifically through online meditation.

Measurable

Specificity is a solid start, but being able to measure your goals makes it (much) easier to track progress and know when you’ve reached the finish line. Making your goal measurable means you know how you will know when you get there.

EXAMPLE: As a family, we’ll measure this through the Vitality mental wellbeing assessment category, moving to “well-managed” by practicing mindfulness through the Headspace app.

Achievable

At this stage, it’s important to be realistic. Is your goal really something you and your family can accomplish? An achievable goal answers these questions: how can I hit my goal and how realistic is the goal based on constraints such as financial and time pressures?

EXAMPLE: As a family, we all have different schedules and routines so we want to commit to 10-minutes of online meditation 5 days a week through the app.

Relevant

This step is about making sure that the goal matters to you. Why are you setting this goal? A relevant goal can answer “yes” to these: is it worthwhile, is it the right time, is it applicable?

EXAMPLE: As a family, we agree that mental wellbeing is an integral part of our overall health and happiness, and this is a priority to us.

Time-bound

Every goal needs a target date, so that there is accountability and you have something to work towards. This part of the SMART goal helps to prevent everyday tasks from taking priority over your longer-term goals. A time-bound goal covers all the elements of when. Mark your target date in a diary or in a notebook that you carry around with you – or try out an app-based version if you prefer to go digital.

EXAMPLE: As a family, we want to improve our mental wellbeing and boost our overall Vitality mental wellbeing assessment category to “well-managed” within the next 6 months.

Now that you have your SMART goal – we wish you every success. Our final tip is to add healthy rewards to this process and make sure to celebrate the small wins along the way.