If any of y'all are like me and starting off with your workout program, you should have a goal or two. Or twenty. Or thousands. But a goal is just a dream without one criteria: it must be SMART. As in:
* Specific
* Measurable
* Attainable
* Relevant
* Timely
But you can also have SMARTER goals which are even more successful:
* Evaluate
* Re-Evaluate
"We need to make more oil and our goal is to make more oil for less money." You'll see how this is not smart goal. Similar to YOU claiming,
"I'm going to lose weight"
A fair idea, a nice dream, maybe something to put on your dream board, but not a fair goal. Let's take a look at why.
SPECIFIC
Look at it this way, if something is specific, then someone can't ask for clarification. If you were to tell anyone your goal, no one would want additional information to find out exactly what you were trying to do. Oh? Do you feel "losing weight" is good enough?
Think about these bullet points:
* How about if you're given a pill that made you lose 20 pounds by dehydrating you and causing diarrhea?
* You know, your leg weighs a lot. In fact, I bet we could amputate both for a NICE weight loss.
* Muscle is heavier than fat, right? So just don't do anything for a long time and lose your muscle. Done.
* For only $100,000 I can surgically remove that pesky fat of yours...
I have a good feeling you did not mean losing weight like the ways listed above. You likely meant that you want to lose fat through a natural caloric deficit. That is much more specific. Let's amend our original statement:
"I'm going to lose fat through a natural caloric deficit"
MEASURABLE
If we attempt to make a nice goal, we might get as far as this one, especially when it comes to fitness. "I want to lose 20 pounds." These statements are all over the place Although we've already found out that that's not specific enough, let's modify our specific goal to bring in something measurable. And no, stating "I want to lose fat until I look like [insert movie star]!" doesn't count as a measurable goal. If you show me how you would measure that an I'll tell you it's OK then.
"I'm going to lose 20 pounds of fat through a natural caloric deficit"
ATTAINABLE
OK, let's be frank. If you are 110 pounds and 5'8", you don't likely have 20 pounds of fat to lose. If you have dress you're trying to fit into for a party this weekend, 20 pounds of fat loss is also not attainable (however, if you do, patent your strategy NOW because you're about to get rich). Make sure your goal is even possible. That's fine if it's a long shot, that's fine if you're raising the bar and "shooting for the stars." But it does you no good to make a goal that you can in no way even possibly meet. You're out to fail from the got go. Make it a stretch goal, but not a cut-yourself-in-two goal.
For this one, we'll pretend I'm a 180 pound female attempting to lose this 20 pounds over four months. That's attainable.
RELEVANT
What if someone asked you, "What do you have as a goal for today?" and you answered, "I'm going to lose 20 pounds of fat through a natural caloric deficit over the next two months." Well that's good, but how is that relevant to today? We're talking about today. Or what your goal was to lose fat but you declared it like this: "I'm going to lose 20 pounds of fat through a natural caloric deficit, drink 8 glasses of water each day, and watch the entire series of True Blood." Wait a second...how in the world does True Blood have in common with your weight loss? And is the water volume for health reasons or to help you lose weight? Be certain everything in your goal is relevant to your single desired outcome.
TIMELY
Our last addition to our goal is to put a time limit on it. Losing 20 pounds over four weeks or twenty years makes for two entirely different goals. And if you don't put a time limit on it, how will you know the amount of effort you need? How will you write down how frequently you need to exercise, how much of a deficit you should have, or if you have have that birthday cake or not? You need to define what your time range is. If you just leave it to "Oh, I'll be happy with any progress in that direction" then YES, you will be settling with "good enough." DON'T DO IT! You are better than that.
"I'm going to lose 20 pounds of fat through a natural caloric deficit over three months"
EVALUATE & RE-EVALUATE
Fantastic. Good for you for getting this far. You've developed your SMART goal, you've written it in your journal and underlined in red. But now it's half-way through your time period and you're not even close to where you need to be. This is when you evaluate your goals and make modifications where you need to. If your goal is no longer attainable, change it. Nothing saying you can't change a goal. You should change what you're doing also, but change it to make it real. Also, if a goal is no longer relevant, take note and either change or remove that goal. No need to have a false failure over your head. Life changes. It happens. Evaluate and re-evaluate through the entire process. Look at it weekly, or even daily, if you goal is short term enough to require a daily review. Just keep your goals current.
OK, now you have the tools. GO MAKE THOSE GOALS AND MAKE 'EM SMART ONES! ENJOY!
If you want to dive deep then I recommend the highly rated SMART Goals Made Simple by SJ Scott. Click the link below to find out more. 
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