As a marketing communications professional who is a certified personal trainer and half marathoner, I’m often asked by professional colleagues looking to restart their fitness endeavors about how to get started and how to stick with it.

Success in fitness starts by setting the same SMART goals we use in communications planning. SMART is an acronym for goals that are:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Time-bound

By now, many people and companies have set individual goals (resolutions) and business goals for the year. Now is the perfect time to examine whether your goals are SMART. SMART goals help keep us accountable and help us measure whether we’ve moved the needle forward.

Imagine having GPS navigation that simply said “drive down the street” or “turn left and keep going.” With those fuzzy, unspecific instructions, odds are we might never reach our destination. SMART goals help clarify specific actions and allow us to measure our progress against them to reach our destination and to achieve our dreams.

Specific goals state exactly what we want to accomplish. “I want to lose weight” isn’t specific enough. “I want to lose 40 pounds and run my first 5K by September” is more specific.

Measurable goals allow us to track progress in meeting the goal. “I want to get into better shape” isn’t measurable. But, “I want to lose 40 pounds by September” gives us a benchmark for measurement. 

Attainable and Realistic goals pass the common-sense test. If you haven’t worked out in years, a goal of losing 40 pounds in four weeks or running in a marathon in a month is not realistic. Goals that are unrealistic set us up for failure. A more realistic and attainable goal might be, “I will work out for four days a week for one hour over the next three months.” What are we willing to give up or do to get where we want to be?

Time-bound goals help in the assessment process. If we simply state we want to lose 40 pounds, does that mean in a year, in 10 years, or over our lifetime? A time-bound goal states the by when: I want to lose 40 pounds by September. We know exactly where we want to be at a specific point in time.

As businessman and author Harvey Mackay stated: “A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.” Check your professional and fitness new year’s goals against the SMART model and track the results. What gets measured ultimately gets done – in fitness and in the workplace.