What are SMART goals, and how to create them

We all set ambitious goals, which help us visualise where we’d like to be and motivate us to get there. However, the objectives we’re working so hard to achieve can quickly grow into a source of frustration if they’re vague or difficult to transform into a reality.

To turn ambition into action (and results), you need a blueprint that makes it easy to follow through. That’s where the SMART framework comes in. It’s a way of creating goals that are realistic and actionable so you can work towards them with clarity and focus. 

In this guide, we’ll explain how the SMART framework works, share real examples, and show you how to write SMART goals that help your business grow with focus and confidence.

What are SMART goals?

SMART goals are goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This framework helps you turn vague ideas into clear, realistic targets with clear steps and deadlines. It outlines exactly what success looks like and how to get there.

SMART Goals vs. Unspecified Goals

Example	Goal	SMART version
Lifestyle	Get fitter	Run three times per week for 30 minutes until I can run without walking.
Workplace	Improve client communication	Send weekly progress updates to all active clients every Friday for the next three months.

Specific

Your goal needs to be clear and easily understood. For instance, instead of saying that your goal is to ‘grow your social media’, you might say you want to ‘increase your Instagram follower count by 1,000 this quarter by posting five reels and four images a week’. 

Pro tip: Start your goal with an action verb like increase, launch, or complete.

Measurable

You need to have clearly defined metrics that make it easy to monitor success. Often, this comes down to quantifying your objective and setting a timeframe. Instead of ‘boosting email newsletter signups’, try ‘increasing email newsletter signups by 50% in three months’. Without measurable targets, it’s hard to tell if your efforts are paying off.

Pro tip: Choose one main metric to track progress. Focusing on too many numbers at once can confuse your results.

Achievable

Your goal should be realistic and attainable within your timeframe. Increasing your conversion rate by 300% in a month might be an exciting prospect, but if this is unrealistic for your business, it may lead to misplaced expectations and frustration. When goals are achievable, you’re more likely to stay consistent and see results.

Pro tip: Check past performance before setting a new goal. Realistic growth builds momentum, while unrealistic targets kill motivation.

Relevant

Your goal should be relevant to your broader business objectives. For this, you need to answer the ‘why’ of your SMART goal. Instead of simply saying you want to ‘increase customer lifetime value’, you might say ‘increase customer lifetime value to support our shift toward a subscription-based service and improve long-term revenue predictability’. If a goal isn’t relevant, even success can feel hollow.

Pro tip: Before committing, ask yourself why this goal matters right now. 

Time-bound

You should set a deadline to achieve your goal, as this keeps you accountable. For example, rather than saying you want to ‘increase sales by 20%’, say you want to ‘increase sales by 20% in six months’. Deadlines turn good intentions into real results by giving you a clear finish line to work towards.

Pro tip: Break long deadlines into smaller milestones. Hitting short-term wins helps you stay motivated.

How to write SMART goals

We’ve touched on the way a SMART goal works, but now let’s get more specific and look at exactly how to create one (with an example to guide you through the process). 

Example: Peter’s dessert store.

Peter recently launched a new website for his popular dessert brand. He wants to grow his online presence, but progress is slow. He gathers his tech team together in a meeting and says:

“Listen up. I want to improve my new website’s traffic. Let’s get to it.” 

Peter’s team points out that this goal is too vague, meaning it’ll be difficult to achieve. Peter agrees and heads back to the drawing board. He decides to put the goal through the SMART framework. 

1. Make your goals specific

To be successful, you need to ensure your goal is specific so it’s clear and actionable. We recommend going for a classic what, who, and how approach.

• What do you want to achieve?
• Who will be responsible for achieving your goal?
• How will you achieve this specific goal? What steps do you need to take? 

These questions will provide clarity on your objective. For Peter, his specific goal might look something like this:

• “I want to increase the number of local customers that visit my product pages through blogs, local SEO, and social media posts.”

We now have a who (local customers), a what (increasing visits), and a how (blogs, local SEO, and social media posts). 

2. Make your goals measurable

Next, make your goals quantifiable so you can track your progress over time.

For instance, reducing customer churn rate is a great goal. But by how much? 10%? 25%? 100%? Without these key performance indicators (KPIs), your team won’t know what they’re aiming for. Setting a quantifiable metric keeps everyone on the same page.

Peter’s new goal is more specific, but charting success is still difficult. Here’s how he makes his goal more measurable to give his team a benchmark to achieve: 

• “I want to increase the number of local customers that visit my product pages by 300% through blogs, local SEO, and social media posts.”

3. Make your goals achievable

At this stage, it’s time to take a long, hard look at your goal and decide if it’s realistic. Can you actually achieve it with your available resources, or are your ambitious goals setting you up for disappointment? 

After performing some domain research, Peter finds that most of his direct competitors took years to increase their traffic by 300%. He decides that his goal is a bit far-fetched. He refines his objective again:

• “I want to increase the number of local customers that visit my product pages by 50% through blogs, local SEO, and social media posts.”

4. Make your goals relevant 

We’ve already considered the what, who and how. Now, think about the why. What are the benefits of this goal? How will it help you, your career, or your business? Expressing why your goal is so important will help with accountability and employee performance. 

Peter understands that getting his team on board means clearly stating the purpose of achieving the goal and why it will benefit his business. As such, he further refines his objective:

• “I want to increase the number of local customers that visit my product pages by 50% through blogs, local SEO, and social media posts so that we can increase online cupcake orders by 30% and foster customer loyalty in the local area.” 

5. Make your goals time-bound

Lastly, there’s the ‘when’. To track progress and understand whether you’re hitting your targets, set a time limit for you and your team to reach the relevant goal. You can also create individual milestones along with an action plan for different parts of your project using a Gantt chart. 

Peter’s goal is excellent, but he still needs to set a timeframe. After some more research, he lands on his final objective. 

• “I want to increase the number of local customers that visit my product pages by 50% within 12 months through blogs, local SEO, and social media posts so that we can increase online cupcake orders by 30% and foster customer loyalty in the local area.”

By putting an objective through each of the stages individually, you can begin to refine an achievable, relevant, and time-bound goal to make an actionable objective for your team.

SMART planning template

When you’re ready to set your SMART goal, you can use this template to turn your ideas into action. Write each part in detail so you know exactly what you’re aiming for, how you’ll measure progress, and by when you want to achieve it.

SMART Goal Planning Template

	Fill in the columns below…
Specific	What exactly will you achieve? How will you do it?
Measurable	What measurement will you use? What is your KPI?
Achievable	Is this goal realistic (capacity, budget, skills)?
Relevant	Why does this matter now?
Time-bound	Deadline (DD Mon YYYY) or milestone (weekly/monthly)
Owner(s)	Name(s) and role(s) responsible for meeting the goal
Resources	Budget, tools, or support you’ll need for success
Risks	The top 2 to 3 risks and how you’ll manage or prevent them

What are the benefits of SMART goals? 

To reiterate why achievable SMART goals are important, let’s break down the key benefits. 

• Increased motivation and focus: SMART objectives are specific and measurable, meaning they give you clarity. They show you exactly what you need to do when it comes to achieving your goal within a given timeframe. 
• Improved productivity: As SMART goals provide clarity, they’re a great motivator. They will help you and your team work toward specific benchmarks more efficiently. 
• Enhanced decision-making: SMART goals lay out a roadmap for achieving your objective. This makes it easier to prioritise tasks and make more informed decisions. They can also help with resource management. 
• Greater accountability and responsibility: Rather than aimlessly wandering towards a broad goal, SMART goals set out metrics and a timeframe, creating a sense of urgency and accountability. 
• Improves time management: With a set timeframe, you can prioritise tasks and avoid last-minute stress.
• Increases confidence: Tracking measurable progress builds self-belief and reinforces the feeling that your goals are achievable.
• Aligns efforts: SMART goals connect individual actions to bigger business or personal objectives, ensuring everyone is working toward the same result.

In short, SMART goals help you set better objectives that increase the likelihood of achieving your goal and finding success. 

SMART goal troubleshooting

Even with a strong framework, goals can fall off track if they’re not set and monitored carefully.

Here are a few common pitfalls to watch out for:

1. Scope creep: When your goals are too broad, it’s easy to lose focus or keep adding new tasks that weren’t part of the original plan. For example, if the plan was to launch a new app, but feature requests keep piling on, it’s time to narrow down your goal based on what you hope to achieve first.
2. Vanity metrics: Tracking numbers that look good but don’t reflect real progress, like total followers instead of engagement, can lead to wasted effort.
   
3. Random date syndrome: Deadlines that aren’t tied to realistic timelines or workloads can cause unnecessary pressure and lower the quality of work. If there is no timeline, there is no urgency, and the project might not get done, while if the timeline is too short, people might cut corners to meet the deadline.

To avoid these traps, revisit your SMART goals regularly and make sure each element still makes sense for your team and is specific enough.

Best practices for creating effective SMART goals

Here are some of the best practices you should keep in mind as you set SMART objectives to improve your project management and business efficiency. 

1. Involve others in the goal-setting process

When you set your goals, it’s worth getting input from others – especially when setting time frames and making the goal achievable. Your frontline sales and marketing teams will often have more insights into what’s a realistic goal. 

2. Break down large goals into smaller, manageable goals

If you have a complex team goal, break it down into smaller tasks and tactics. For instance, if your goal specifies improving organic traffic with social media content, you’ll want to break that down further to avoid vagueness. 

3. Celebrate your accomplishments

As you work towards your SMART goal-setting, celebrate the big and small wins. If you achieve a milestone in the timeframe, reward your team. If you’re ahead of schedule, let them know. 

4. Kill vague verbs

Avoid soft language like improve or optimise. Use numbers and deadlines to define success clearly. For example, increase the customer satisfaction score (CSAT) by 15% in six months.

5. Defend your focus

To achieve your goal, you need to have laser focus. If you get extra ideas, put them into a backlog rather than trying to do them while achieving your goal.

6. Plan your path 

Outline the exact steps needed to reach your goal. Big or long-term goals often require smaller SMART ones along the way.

7. Check in regularly

Set recurring reviews to track progress and remove anything blocking your progress before issues grow.

Ready to get SMART?

When you set smarter goals, you can define a clear objective and take action steps to achieve it. If you’re running a business, they’re one of the most effective ways to align your team on a core objective. In your personal life, they can help you hold yourself accountable and stay motivated. 

Need help with project planning? Salesforce Service Cloud, paired with powerful Gantt chart integrations, lets you manage tasks and timelines efficiently, keeping your team in sync and projects on track.

FAQs

Who invented the SMART goal method​?

SMART goals were first introduced by George T. Doran in 1981. He came up with the idea to help managers set clearer, more achievable goals, and it’s now one of the most common ways to plan goals for both work and life.

Are there any alternatives to the SMART goal system?

The V2MOM framework is an effective alternative for goal-setting and action planning. It stands for Vision, Value, Methods, Obstacles, and Measures. Let’s break that down:

• Vision: What do you want to achieve with your goal? 
• Values: Why is this goal important? 
• Methods: How will you achieve this goal? 
• Obstacles: What is preventing you from success? 
• Measures: What will you use to measure success?

As with the SMART goal template, V2MOM is an excellent way to align your team on a specific objective and work towards attaining goals. We particularly like that this framework ties in with a business’s broader vision and values. However, it can be more complex and lacks a time-bound focus, so it isn’t for everyone. 

What is a professional SMART goal example? 

Let’s take a goal like ‘making more sales in the coming year’. When we use SMART criteria to refine this business goal, we might end up with something like:

“Our goal is to increase sales by 25% in the next 12 months. To do this, our sales and digital marketing team will create five personalised marketing campaigns, optimise our website’s product pages, host monthly webinars, and launch a social media strategy to engage customers and drive them down our sales funnel. This will ultimately help our business boost revenue.” 

Can you make personal goals SMART? 

Definitely, a goal like “read more” sounds good, but doesn’t give you much direction. How many books? By when? Let’s make it SMART instead:

“I’ll read for 30 minutes before bed, five nights a week, for the next month. By the end of the month, I’ll have finished one book.”

How can setting SMART goals benefit my personal life? 

We all have dreams, but they can often seem too big to achieve. Setting specific SMART goals will bring clarity and focus to your aspirations by helping you break down your goals into smaller, more actionable steps. In essence, you’re creating a strategic plan for growth and self-discipline. This can build your confidence and even support mental health.