SMART Goals Worksheet: {Crush your Financial Goals}
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Looking for a SMART goals worksheet so you can start crushing it? We all know that smart goal setting is absolutely crucial to your success. But how can you set great, attainable goals and actually hold yourself accountable so that you get the results you want? It’s important to not only know your goals but to put them to pen and paper and break them down. If you work for a person or company, you already know that the boss is the one who keeps you in line. Great leaders set actionable goals for their employees and expect them to follow necessary action steps to get the sales they desire, to get the customer service feedback they need, or to increase their revenue.
If you treat your life as if you’re the CEO, you will become more serious about your own goals. I’ve created a printable SMART goals worksheet so you can get started crushing your goals today. You can find it at the bottom of this post. Just be sure to come back and read the entire post for an explanation of each section of the worksheet.
Definition of SMART Goals
SMART is an acronym. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Setting goals is the easy part. It’s coming up with an action plan to actually follow through and complete them that’s difficult. Anyone can enthusiastically say “My goal is to obtain financial freedom”! But how are you going to do that? Here’s how you can break it down so you can start setting attainable goals and crushing them.
Before we Get Started, Grab your SMART Goals Worksheet
I’ll send you the password to my free resource library with goodies to help you on your financial journey!
Specific– What is your exact goal? What do you want to do? “Obtain financial freedom” is so generic. You’ve got to get serious about it. An example of a specific goal is “I want to pay off all of my debt except the house”. This will get you to your ultimate goal of financial freedom, but it gives you something concrete to strive for.
Measurable– How are you going to track your progress? Learning how to reverse-engineer your goals will help you reach them faster. If you have $40,000 worth of debt (other than the house) and you take home $80,000 per year, you have to create a personal budget to break down how much you’ll be paying in minimum payments to each debt every month (or every paycheck). You can then see how much money is left over after paying all bills so that you can start attacking the debt using the debt snowball or debt avalanche method.
Attainable- Are your goals realistic, or are you being a bit dreamy? Using the example above, let’s assume you don’t make $80,000 per year but instead you only make $20,000 per year (or worse, you’ve been laid off, are living paycheck to paycheck, and are collecting unemployment). Paying off debt and achieving financial freedom shouldn’t be your goal in this case. You need to get your income up FAST so you can start working towards your goals! Make sure the goals you’re setting are attainable.
Relevant- This is your WHY. Why is this so important to you? Why do you want to obtain financial freedom? I used to be super generic with my WHY, saying that I want my kids and my family to not have to worry and to have more than I ever did. That’s not good enough, people. We live in the Midwest, in a suburb of Springfield, Illinois, and I am a beach-loving mama. I absolutely crave sunshine, waves, and white, sandy beaches. My husband travels A LOT for work. Beach vacations are very important to me. My WHY has been refined to “I want to obtain financial freedom, allowing my family to travel whenever and wherever we’d like any time of the year. And when my kids have kids, I want to be able to pay for large family vacations, with 3-4 generations making memories that will last a lifetime”.
Time-Bound- Give your SMART goals an expiration date. When you’re measuring your goals, and you create a budget, you should be able to tell exactly when you’ll be able to reach your goal (at minimum) based on normal, everyday conditions. Make sure you give yourself a timeline to work with. Set short-term and long-term goals and adjust where necessary.
The goal is to stop setting generic goals and instead get super specific and reverse-engineer them. The SMART goals worksheet I’ve created for you will help hold you accountable, and you can post it on your refrigerator, your bathroom mirror, keep it in your planner, or wherever you’ll see it so that you can be reminded to stay focused and follow through with each step.