Motivation on the Run

On last week’s podcast, I asked for your help in forming a new goal setting acronym built on SMARTER, rather than the old SMART and the world is about to see the unveiling of SMARTER.

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time Sensitive
Enthusiasm
Reward

Thinking about the letters, the desire was to stay with the original words for SMART to make it easier to remember and to help with the acceptance in the community.

However, in working on the podcast for the first of the year about New Year’s goals, SMART fell flat and left several gaps. At that time I started working on expanding the acronym and in an email to Christopher (from podcast #28 fame), I mentioned the need for an E and R on the end to help fill out a new acronym.

I always felt the R needed to be reward, because that is an important part of goal setting, and it was missing from the original. However the E was elusive. I thought about ESCAPE, ie. you might need an escape clause from an unachievable goal. Then I thought about ENGAGE, then ENERGY, but none of these seemed to capture the potential.

Then Daniel from Brazil steps into the narrative and dropped the comment that the E could stand for ENTHUSIASM, and a star was born. That captures the potential for goal setting. That’s what the original needed for completion: Enthusiasm and Reward.

What better finish to a goal setting session than to be Enthusiastic about the goal and to determine the reward for the goal stages and for completion. That speaks to me with the inclusion of Enthusiasm and Reward. All the original words are true, but to accomplish any goal, you must have enthusiasm for the goal. If you can’t work up your enthusiasm for a goal, it is not one you will likely accomplish.

But what if you accomplish the goal? Reward was missing from the original, also. Every speaker on goal setting talks about rewards and their importance to meeting the goal, but it was not part of the memory hook. Now it is.

LET’S TAKE IT AROUND THE WORLD …
Now let’s see if we can get the world to adopt the new acronym. Link to this story and talk about it on your sites.

SMARTER is the new goal setting memory hook with the addition of ENTHUSIASM AND REWARD to the original acronym.