Formatting Your Goals the S.M.A.R.T. Way

Don’t just write vague, general goals; write S.M.A.R.T. goals. Here’s how.


The first study on the power of setting goals and organizational performance originated in the 1960s when Dr. Edwin Locke published a paper entitled “Toward a Theory of Task Motivation and Incentives.” In 1981, George Doran published a work in the November issue of Management Review that expounded upon Locke’s findings called “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management Goals and Objectives.” He recognized that companies need to achieve goals and objectives but often established goals that were too broad to have any meaningful impact.

“You can use a vision board as a tool to help clarify, concentrate, and maintain focus on a specific goal.”

He explained in detail that goals are not vague, inarticulate things. Rather, they are measurable things that need to be achieved to move an organization forward. He was the first to express a way to define, measure, and ultimately achieve goals. His formulation seems simple now, but at the time, it was completely novel. Goals should have the following characteristics:

We also believe that writing your goals down is critical to meeting them. You can read more about that in the Forbes article “Neuroscience Explains Why You Need To Write Down Your Goals If You Actually Want To Achieve Them.” Additionally, you can use a vision board as a tool to help clarify, concentrate, and maintain focus on a specific goal. If you do, be sure to put it somewhere you can see it so you can’t just forget about it later.

If you’d like to learn more about the systems, strategies, tools, and support that we provide our agents to help them perform at their highest level, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’d love to help you.

Josh, Gil, Penny, Christian and Blaire Jelmberg - Owners and Leadership of the Jelmberg Team Real Estate

Since it’s inception the Jelmberg Team has been dedicated to setting a new standard for successful business practice, engaging marketing, client care, and innovation. This standard of excellence has given our team a superior reputation with our clients. This standard has been molded into a proven method to sell homes we call the “Jelmberg Advantage.” This “Jelmberg Advantage” is the edge our real estate professionals have when completing a real estate transaction and results in a clear advantage for our team members by all metrics. We have spent an enormous amount of time and money over the last 10 years to create, identify, vet, test, and implement what we believe to be the most effective systems, tools and strategies we could find. Our team members are able to implement these systems into their business to help meet their real estate goals with more leads, more closings, and more referrals.

In the last 10 years our we have over $860 million in home sales!

Why hire just one person when you can have a team of professionals dedicated to selling your home? The Jelmberg Team has found talented Buyers Agents, Marketing Specialists, Photographers, Listing & Contracts Coordinators, and more, which are all an important part of actualizing the sale or purchase of a home. 

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