2025 March 25 The next fun step in goal setting

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Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me today as we continue talking about SMART goals. So let's get started! If you like what you hear today, please leave a like, subscribe, tell your friends, and send me a message.

Thanks for joining me tonight to talk about goals — carefully designed goals, specifically what we call SMART goals. You might recall we’ve talked about SMART goals before. They are specific, measurable, achievable or actionable, relevant or reachable, and time-based with a deadline. We have specific goals. Last week, we talked about how goals should lead to a very specific outcome, and we'll review that in just a moment. Tonight, we’re going to focus on measurable goals.

We’ll go through all of these over the next couple of weeks and then wrap them all up to show how they work together for great outcomes. So, specific — as we discussed, an effective goal has to contain all these elements. But, like I said, we’re not going to cover them all tonight. We’ll do that in upcoming episodes. Tonight, we're going to focus on just the second one: measurable.

First, a quick refresher on the first item: specific. Specific means exactly what it sounds like — you're talking about one thing or one outcome in particular. You’re not just saying you want to save money; you want to save $100. That’s a very specific amount.

We could have said, “We want to save a bunch of money,” but how much is a bunch? We don’t know. It’s not specific. But by saying we want to save $100, we have a clear target, and our brain knows how to work toward that target. A specific goal focuses on one thing only — in this case, saving money.

Now, the M in SMART goals stands for measurable. So, why does measurement even matter? Measurable goals transform vague intentions into concrete targets. If you’re trying to reimagine your life, measurability helps because it provides clarity on what success actually looks like. It creates accountability through objective tracking.

You can’t just say, “Yeah, I did a lot this week.” If you’re counting steps, for example, how many steps did you do? How much money did you save? Measurement also delivers the satisfaction of seeing your progress. If you’re writing things down, you can see yourself getting closer and closer to your goal.

It’s self-motivating, and it helps you identify when adjustments are needed. If you’re working toward a very specific goal and think you should be about halfway there, but you check in and realize that even though you've been working hard, you’re only a quarter of the way there — you may need to revisit your goal and adjust things. And that’s okay.

So, what are the main elements of a measurable goal? First, they have to be quantifiable — or accountable, another way of saying that. There has to be some sort of metric, meaning it’s something you can track. A truly measurable goal answers the question, “How will I know when I’m actually done with it? How do I know when I’ve achieved it?” This requires specific numbers, specific amounts, percentages — a way you can measure progress, compare where you are to where you want to be, and figure out what adjustments might be needed.

Some examples: instead of saying, “I want to read more,” say, “I’ll read two books a month.” Or instead of, “I’ll save money,” like we talked about before, say, “I’ll save $100 per month toward my big dream trip.”

If you’re going to measure something, you have to be able to track it. Another way to say it: you have to be able to count it. You could do things like keep a physical journal, a digital log, or use apps — there are all sorts of fitness apps and budget tracking apps to help you keep track if you’re doing something like that.

And there’s actually a good example of this with two friends of mine. They both ride bikes a lot. There’s an app where they can share how far they’ve gone, the trips they’ve taken, what the terrain was like, what the weather was like, and everything else. It becomes self-motivating at that point because they plan these trips, they tell people they’re going to do them, and now they know everyone can see if they actually followed through.

You can also schedule regular check-ins with yourself or with others. That’s another really good tool. If you’re working out at home, for example, have a workout buddy who might call you on the phone, or use an app where you can see each other. You can say, “Seven o’clock tomorrow morning, we’re going to work out together,” and help keep each other honest. Then each of you keeps track of how you’re doing on the goal you’re working toward.

If you have a large goal — like a big trip two years from now — setting milestones along the way really helps provide motivation and accountability. Paying down a credit card, paying off your house. They aren’t all just money goals. It could be losing a certain amount of weight or having some fitness goal, something you really want to attain but that’s not going to happen for months or maybe even a couple of years. By making it measurable, you can keep writing down where you are and see that you’re making progress, even if the goal still seems far off.

You can look at your record and realize, it’s not as far off as it was — you’re actually getting closer. Like I said, large goals become more manageable and motivating when you break them into smaller checkpoints. Something like walking 10,000 steps daily might feel too big for you right now. But maybe you set checkpoints at 3,000, 5,000, or 8,000 steps.

As you go along, you might think, “I’m still only doing 4,000 steps.” But then you look at your notes and realize, “Wait a second, I only planned to be at 3,000 steps by now — I’m actually ahead of my goal!” Things like that really have a built-in motivating factor. That’s another reason for making things measurable.

Making goals measurable ties right into moving into the next phase of your life and achieving the goals you’ve set for yourself to succeed. Maybe you’ve retired from your main career, and you’re looking to transition into something else — like consulting or teaching. Instead of saying, “I want to become a consultant and find some consulting work,” change that goal to, “I’ll send proposals to five potential clients every single week and try to secure three paying jobs within three months.”

You have something very specific you're going to do and something very specific you want to achieve. Even if it’s not tied to business — maybe it's something like, “I want to help people learn how to read.” You could work with a group, or on your own, or with a local school, a charity, or a church. And you can say, not only do you want to help people learn how to read, but also that you want to find a place to do it and help two children learn to read every week for the next six months.

By making it very actionable and specific, you’ve taken something that was just a dream — something that might happen someday — and turned it into a concrete plan of what you want to accomplish.

It could be anything. Maybe you had a physically active job, and now you need to find something else to do instead of just sitting around all day. Rather than saying, “I’ll get in shape,” say, “I’ll walk 30 minutes a day.” These things all work together.

This actually affects a lot of people, because I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Oh, I wish I had started writing a book. Now I don’t remember everything.” But if you start working on something, you’ll remember all the things going on. Maybe you want to leave behind some sort of legacy book for your kids, because they might remember, “Oh, Grams used to talk about that story…”

What was that about? So instead of saying, “I want to pass on all the things I’ve learned or done in my life,” make it specific. Say, “I’ll spend two hours each week outlining and documenting my experiences.” Then set a deadline — we’ll talk more about time later in the series — but something like, “I’ll create the index and chapter outlines by December.”

Now you’ve got something very, very specific. And when you start doing it that way, what once seemed like an insurmountable goal becomes manageable. The very next step doesn’t feel so big, and you find out it’s actually pretty easy to do.

While it all sounds simple — just come up with a way to measure things — there are a few things you want to be careful about. One of those is overdoing it with too many metrics. Instead of saying, “I’m going to write a book, and I’ll have this many diagrams, and this many words, and I’ll write this many words a day,” and piling on a hundred different things — focus on one to three key measurements for whatever goal you’re working on.

That’s going to be way more effective than trying to track everything. If your goal is something like, “I’ll write the index to the book,” you don’t need to write down how many chapters you’ll have or anything else. Just focus on getting the index done. Once you’ve done that, your brain will take over and help you flesh it out. If you keep things simple — which we talk about a lot — your brain is wonderful at making sure what you want actually happens. And when you start on something, it will help you finish it.

And as always, make sure it can be measured — it has to be measured in a real, concrete way. Statements like, “I want to be happier,” need something tangible attached to them, such as, “I’ll write three gratitude entries in my journal every day.” Things that are too intangible have a way of never really happening, or you end up kidding yourself, saying, “Oh yeah, I’m happier,” without actually doing anything to make it so.

And the last thing — you really want to avoid perfectionism. It’s easy to fall into negative self-talk, and we’ve talked about that a lot. It can happen here too. The point of measuring things is to encourage yourself, to focus on progress, and to keep yourself motivated.

If you’re a perfectionist, you might say, “I was supposed to hit 3,000 steps today, and I only got 2,999. I’ve failed. I should just stop.” That’s clearly not the result we want. Give yourself grace. We all want to set big goals, and we tend to make those goals a little bigger than we can realistically achieve sometimes — and that’s okay. Just give yourself some grace when you fall a little short. No negative self-talk allowed, as always.

So, as we start wrapping things up here: measurement really transforms concepts and dreams into achievable realities. And that’s really important. I’m going to say that again because it’s such a key piece of SMART goals: we all have dreams, we all have concepts. “Oh, I’d like to start a business.” “Oh, I’d like to get to France.” I know many people who’ve said things like that — not just for weeks or months, but for years and even decades.

When you set a specific goal and then measure your progress toward that goal, those dreams — the ones that are so important to you — become much more likely to turn into reality. An achievable reality. Because now, you’ve gotten focused on how to take step after step to move toward that goal you're setting.

When setting SMART goals and reimagining your lives — measurable goals provide both direction on what to do and satisfaction when combined with the other SMART elements. Measurability helps turn wishes and dreams into meaningful transformations.

And that’s really what we’re talking about here: how to create transformation in our lives. We’ve either already transitioned into a different phase of life, we did it a while back, or we’re about to — most likely one of those three situations. But even if you’re not near one of those phases right now, in any phase of your life, you can always find things to work on and set goals for what you want to accomplish.

The really important point is that measurability is key to turning all those dreams and wishes into something you can actually attain — to help achieve the transformation you want. Of course, you’ve got to remember the other SMART steps, too. SMART goal steps: specific, which we talked about last week; measurable, which we just covered; achievable; relevant; and time-based.

We’ll cover relevant — which also stands for reach goals. You want a goal to be relevant — something achievable, like we talked about last week — but also something that matters to you. Relevant goals, or reach goals, have to be tied to what you're genuinely interested in, but they should also push you a little bit. You don’t want it to be too easy. And then, of course, time-based goals are also part of it, and those are coming in the future.

Remember, you can use the SMART system and all the different pieces of it to take those goals that have been hanging around in your life — and we all have goals, whether we talk about them or not — and really turn them into things that, step by step, you can actually reach. You can transform your life into what you want it to be.

That’s it for tonight. I wanted to focus on the second step: defining a goal in a way you can actually measure, so you can see your progress and motivate yourself to keep going, even when you hit minor setbacks. And that’s important because things like that happen in life all the time. But by seeing how much progress you’ve already made, you’re more likely to continue making progress after that.

Your homework for tonight, similar to last week, is to think about some of the goals you might have set for yourself. Then ask yourself — were they measurable, or were they just kind of vague, desirable thoughts? Extra points if you revisit one of those goals and imagine how you could make it measurable. What was the real goal? And how would you know whether or not you actually reached that goal? Just doing that step can make a big difference.

This, along with what we did last week — making a goal specific — will give you a big head start on figuring out how to make your goals measurable. If you go back to the specific part, it’ll help you see how to make something measurable. And once you’ve got both specific and measurable down, you’re well on your way to using SMART goals to achieve everything you want.

As we say every week, please remember — there’s a lot of strife in the world right now. All over the world, here in the U.S., everywhere — it just seems like there’s a lot of things going on. At UKR7.com, we have links to ways you can support the people of Ukraine. There’s an active war going on in Europe, which is just amazing to consider.

And also, WCK.org — World Central Kitchen — they work around the world, usually providing food and food-related services. I think they’ve gone a little beyond that in some cases to support people in disaster areas, but food remains their big focus.

But as we always talk about, there are lots of ways to help people — big national or international organizations, but also local organizations that are always looking for help. And even if you’re not in a position to make donations right now or to volunteer, maybe your schedule just doesn’t allow it. You can always just say hi to someone, smile — you always have the ability to make life a little bit better right in the area around you. 

Remember, one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. It changes your perspective on the world in a really positive way. So if you can and you’re able, visit UKR7.com, WCK.org, or support any local organization — or just make someone’s day a little brighter. Wish them a good day, say good morning, smile at them.

As always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along, and please subscribe and hit that like button. Drop me a comment about what you’d like to hear next.

Have a great week. Remember to live the life you dreamed of, because that’s the path to contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com. Thank you!