Anything done by a standard or an acceptable amount will not result in success. When you become complacent, too comfortable or decide to coast in your life, career or business, you are risking a downward spiral.

If you are okay with average and are okay with doing what everyone else is doing, you are putting yourself at risk of failure.

Hear me out.

When your husband proposed to you, you were excited and hopeful that you would have a wonderful marriage. You didn’t think, I hope we have an average marriage.

As you started your career, you desired to be great and to impact people. You didn’t seek to be an average employee.

When you opened the doors to your business, you wanted to provide a service or product that wow’d people. You didn’t want to be like every other business on the block.

If you give average attention to any area of your life and seek average results, you will never achieve success.

This is why people have failing marriages, businesses, careers, and health. We are giving average attention and getting average results.

Why not crush average and seek more?

It is time to change your commitment to average and seek extraordinary results.

Every organization, boss, and training tells you to focus on SMART goals to achieve results. 

SMART goals is an acronym meaning:
Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time Bound

Some have even changed it to SMARTER goals by adding- 

Evaluate

Review

In the mindset of SMARTER goals, it goes something like this. 

• Have the goal all figured out.The goal is to be specific on what you want to achieve, why you want to achieve it, who is going to help and which resources may you need.
• Establish how much or how many you need to determine success. 
• Determine what success looks like and choose goals that are achievable and realistic. 
• Choose goals that seem worth your effort and match the efforts you can give it.
• Decide the time it will take to achieve the goal and how you will evaluate your progress and review your goals.

Though I have taught this very same acronym to many people, I find it having many flaws. I want to touch on these so that you free yourself from this goal setting technique.

FLAWS Of SMARTER Goals:

Flaw 1: It requires you to be specific and seems to push you to figure it all out. This stifles you to the plan, seems inflexible, and can simply scare you away. 

I believe some of you are not setting goals because you think you should have it all figured out. I do not want you to have it all figured out. I hope your goals are so big that you do not have every step figured out. 

I have a hunch that Oprah Winfrey was not specific, nor had it all figured out when she started her Oprah talk show or OWN. In fact, she could not have figured any of this out. 

As an Anchor at a television station, she was demoted as a writer and reporter. She did not allow this to hinder her. She kept dreaming and pushing and eventually had her own talk show and television station later in life. 

Flaw 2: This technique tells you to ensure the goal is achievable. 

When you are setting goals that you know for sure you can achieve, they are not big enough. This process is inhibiting your potential and does not push you enough. I challenge you to stretch your goals and think big. Grant Cardone tells us to 10X your goals. In his book, the 10X Rule he teaches us not to set average goals to continue to get average results. It is time to set your goals 10 times what you think you can achieve. 

It goes like this: If you are building a business and establish that you need to connect with 5 people a day to grow, connect with 50 people instead. Everything you do should be at 10X. 

If you do this, you will grow exponentially. With this mindset, you will achieve more than you ever imagined.

Flaw 3: You are taught to choose goals that are relevant.

Which Webster tells us is to choose goals that are closely connected or appropriate to what is being done or considered. 

I find that if we are always doing things closely connected to what we are already doing, we may not be expanding ourselves enough or at all. This can cause us to get in a rut or become complacent. 

Ellen Degeneres did not choose goals that were relevant to get where she is today. She began as a comedian on stage. At the time, women were not recognized in this industry. 

She kept working as a comedian and eventually was offered to star in the sitcom Ellen. Once she announced she was lesbian, the show cancelled and her career took a tumble. 

This did not stop her. Since the early 2000’s, she has been a popular talk show host and producer.  Ellen Degeneres did not set goals that were closely connected to being a comedian. She expanded and explored other opportunities to continue to grow.

Flaw 4: The biggest flaw in the SMARTER goal process is everyone is setting goals this way and never challenging the status quo. Every person and business sets goals this same, boring way which stifles big creative dreams and successful results. 

Maybe this is the reason most people are not using this guide to their goals very seriously. Or, why I have seen a glaze over people’s eyes and yawns when I taught it.

Avoid Setting Smarter Goals

SMARTER goal setting experience is stifling, inflexible, normal, lacking, and simply boring. And, if I can be frank- it is just producing average sh*t.

If you continue to build SMARTER goals for your life and business, you are denying yourself and the world the best version of you and your business. You are screwing yourself and the world of you.

It is time to break away from a mediocre mindset and defy setting average goals.

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