SMART is used widely in
the business community as a method to define the goals and the necessary steps
for the successful development of ventures and projects. Each letter can stand
for several things. The version I like to use is Simple, Meaningful, Achievable,
Realistic, Time-limited. Although SMART is useful to set up a project from
scratch, with personal development, you do not start from a blank page: you
already have a life with certain demands and obligations. Adopt SMART if it
helps but adapt it to your daily needs and use it flexibly and mindfully. Plan
back-up strategies and smaller steps when things go wrong. Make sure you
schedule a few minutes at the end of each day to analyse your performance and
possibly plan for the next day. Look at what has and hasn’t worked and be
prepared to make adjustments. Expect to revert to your old habits from time to
time and remain connected to your physical, emotional and mental daily needs.
If you have slipped up, what were the circumstances or the triggers that have
contributed to it? Where you not asking too much of yourself at that point ?
Your resolutions don’t have to be all or nothing. Don’t allow a temporary lapse
to be an excuse to give up entirely. At some stage, there will be an emergency
or the unexpected event that will challenge your plans and priorities. What is
the best I can do during those times of crises? Anything, however small, that
keeps you on track is worth doing. Now and again, choose to do a one off thing
in keeping with your choice of resolution to take you out of routine and to
bring further spice into your life.
More importantly, examine
how what you are doing makes you feel. Are you still excited or motivated about
making those changes? If it has become a bore of a chore, the steps you have
taken are unrealistic or too rigid, or require too much discipline. Make sure
you break difficult or large goals down into smaller chunks.
You need to perceive resolutions as a bonus to
your life, a positive inclusion rather than a restriction or an exclusion. If
you are already stressed, you may find it more beneficial to focus on an
intention or a way of being rather than choosing something new and fancy with a
strong outcome and specific tangible results attached to it. Applying this
intention to all your endeavours could colour the quality of your life and
boost your self-esteem and bring back that zest of life when everything is
possible.
