Beyond SMART: Goal Setting for Entrepreneurs
If thereās one thing we know about goals, they have to be SMART, right?
After all, thatās what weāve been told for years. The only thing that matters is that your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.
While that looks great on paperāand clearly itās easy to rememberāit doesnāt go far enough for those who want to achieve big things.
Think about it. Do you want to be stuck with āattainableā and ārealisticā goals when what you really dream about is a 3-day workweek, frequent international travel, and enough money to fund a mission trip (or three). Seems pretty clear that those safe, smart goals arenāt going to get you there.
In fact, they might even do worse than simply ānot get you there.ā They may actively hold you back.
Consider what happens when you set an āattainableā goal of earning 10% more than you did last year. You might work 10% more. You might spend 10% more on ads or product creation. You might even reach out to 10% more potential clients.
And youāll likely earn about 10% more.
āNot bad!ā you say. After all, that was your goal.
But did that 10% goal inspire you to work harder? Or did it create a subconscious ceiling on your earning potential that youāre unable to break through?
Rather than focusing on goals that are attainable and realistic, savvy entrepreneurs know that the key to incredible success lies in creating lofty goals that feel out of reachāmaybe even UN-attainable.
They donāt strive to earn 10% more than last year. They want 50% or even 100% more. They stretch themselves. They find newāand betterāways to do things, so they donāt have to work twice as hard, but they remain open to the possibility of doing soāat least in the short termāwhen itās necessary.
Of course, you cannot simply declare crazy goals and expect the universe to hand them to you. And thatās exactly why putting aside those smart goals is soā¦smart. When you shun the attainable in favor of the āholy cow, how will I ever do THAT?ā goal, you push yourself beyond those self-imposed limits and reach for the stars.
Sure, you might not double your income, but youāre almost guaranteed to do better than a mere 10% increase. So push your boundaries. Set big, audacious goals. Even if you fail, youāll be much further ahead than those smart goals would leave you.