SMART Goals for Your Career, and Where They Fail

SMART is a useful editing tool and a poor thinking tool. It is very good at turning a vague intention into something you can act on, and it quietly pushes you towards goals that are easy to count.

The five letters, and the one that matters most

The acronym comes from a 1981 article by George T. Doran in Management Review on writing management goals and objectives. The letters have drifted since, and the common reading is:

• Specific. What exactly, not a category.
• Measurable. How you will know, in a way another person could verify.
• Achievable. Within your control and your circumstances.
• Relevant. Connected to something you actually want.
• Time-bound. By when, as a date.

In practice, career goals almost always fail on measurable and time-bound, and pass easily on the other three. So if you are short of time, add those two and stop.

The framework is standard in formal performance management for exactly this reason. The Office of Personnel Management’s performance management guidance is built around setting expectations that can actually be assessed, which is the same problem in an organisational frame.

Three rewrites

The method: write the vague version honestly, then add one letter at a time until it stops being comfortable.

Vague: I want to get better at public speaking.

SMART: Deliver three internal presentations of at least fifteen minutes each by the end of Q3, and ask two colleagues for written feedback on each using the same three questions.

Note what happened. “Better” became a count of reps plus a feedback mechanism, because speaking skill is not directly measurable but reps and feedback are.

Vague: I want to move into data analysis.

SMART: By 30 June, complete the reporting automation for the weekly sales pack, and have it in use by the sales team, so that I can point to a delivered analytics project when I apply for hybrid analyst roles from July.

Note the shape: the goal is an artefact in use, not a certificate. The reason is in the goal, which is what keeps it relevant when it gets inconvenient. See how to change careers for why the artefact matters more than the course.

Vague: I want a promotion.

SMART: By the March review, own the vendor relationship for two suppliers end to end and have documented the process, and have had one explicit conversation with my manager about what the next grade requires, with their criteria written down.

Note the correction: the promotion itself is not achievable in the SMART sense, because somebody else decides. What is in your control is the evidence and the conversation. Aiming at the decision produces a goal you cannot manage; aiming at the inputs produces one you can.

The two places SMART goes wrong

When the outcome is not yours to control. Getting the promotion, getting the offer, landing the client. You can be measurable and time-bound about these and still fail while doing everything right, which teaches you nothing. Convert them to input goals, as above.

When you cannot yet see what good looks like. Early in learning something, any metric you choose is probably the wrong one, because you do not yet know what matters. A goal to write 500 lines of code a week or read two books a month optimises the countable thing and misses the point.

For both cases, use a process commitment instead: a repeated action plus a review date. “Two applications a week, reviewed at the end of each month, adjusting the targeting based on what got responses.” Measurable in effort, honest about the outcome. The application tracker exists largely because job search goals belong in this category.

Calibrating the achievable letter

The weakest letter, because it is the one people use to talk themselves down.

Two questions make it concrete. Is every step in this goal something I can do without another person’s permission? And have I done anything of comparable size before, or is this the first?

If a step needs permission, the goal is to get the permission. If it is the first thing of that size, halve it. Neither adjustment is defeatist; both convert a wish into a plan.

For skill goals, O*NET occupation profiles are a useful reality check, because they list the skills and knowledge a role actually uses. That tells you which skill is worth a quarter of your effort rather than which one sounds impressive.

Writing goals for a performance review

Slightly different game, because someone else is assessing them.

Make the measure something your manager can see without asking you. Attach it to a business outcome they already care about, in their words. And agree the criteria in writing before the period starts, because a disputed measure at review time is a much worse conversation than an awkward one at the beginning.

Then keep a running note of evidence as you go. It becomes your review, and later it becomes your CV bullets, where the numbers are the difference between a duty and an achievement. See resume achievements for turning them into lines that land.

A five-minute routine

Once a quarter, write three goals: one skill, one visible piece of work, one relationship. Add measurable and time-bound to each. Put the review date in a calendar.

Three is the right number. Most people write eight and complete none.

Related

For applying this to a change of field, see how to change careers and changing careers at 40. For the titles and levels these goals usually point at, see the job titles guide. For deciding whether the goal should be a new job at all, see what to do when you hate your job.

Add measurable and time-bound, aim at inputs not decisions, three goals a quarter. You can turn the results into resume bullets.