Setting Goals

"Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals." ~ Aristotle

Note: This post was originally posted Jan.26th on another blog I contribute to titled "Men Getting Fit". My next post will be dealing with this topic.

I don't know about the rest of you, but setting goals has always been a challenge for me.... well, maybe not setting them, but actually achieving them. Sometimes my goals are too lofty, sometimes they're set too far in the future, other times there demise occurs by element beyond my control.

I've been tossing around this subject in my head for more than a few weeks now, and I've been doing a bit of research to help make 2010 more successful.

Apparently, a great way to make goals successful and more powerful is to use the S.M.A.R.T or S.M.A.R.T.E.R mnemonic; which stands for:

S - Specific (Significant, Stretching, Simple)
M - Measurable (Meaningful, Motivational, Manageable)
A - Attainable (Appropriate, Achievable, Agreed Upon, Action Oriented)
R - Relevant (Realistic, Reasonable, Rewarding, Results Oriented)
T - Time-bound (Timely, Trackable, Tangible)
E - Evaluate (Excitable, Ethical)
R - Reevaluate (Rewarded, Revisited, Recorded)

Source ~ Wikipedia

Goals such as: losing weight, improving my eating habits, being able to finish a 10k run, are not S.M.A.R.T goals, and are therefore far less likely to succeed.

So based on that criteria I'm going to focus on creating some short, medium & long term goals for 2010....... what are your goals going to be? Are they S.M.A.R.T goals?