I’ve already made a number of posts about making goals SMART; but I read recently on businessball.com a reference to SMARTER goals.

The SMART bit was basically the same as I’ve already described, which left me wondering what the ER was. Well the E stands for Ethical and the R for Recorded.

The Ethical bit I’m not convinced by. As I’ve also said in another post; your goals are ultimately defined by your values. Now if you have the values of, say, a bank robber then you’re goal may be to rob a bank. Not very ethical; but the SMART part still works very well for this goal as it does for any other.

Maybe the E should stand for Enthusing. If the goal doesn’t fill you with enthusiasm then you have to ask yourself, “Why am I setting this goal?”.

The R for recorded I’m much more in favour of. This means write your goals down and record the steps you take in achieving them. Not only does this give you a record of what you’ve done but every time you write about your goal you’re reinforcing it in your mind.

So make your SMART goals SMARTER by adding Enthusiasm and Recording them.

(By the way if yu want something digital to record them in then I’d not hesitate to recommend The Journal from David RM Software).