SMART goals: the original 5 words, and how to use them

What does SMART actually stand for?

In the original, Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time-related. George T. Doran published it in the November 1981 issue of Management Review, in a paper called There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives.

Almost every version you will see today says Achievable and Relevant instead of Assignable and Realistic. Those are later edits, not the source.

The swap is worth noticing. Assignable asks who is responsible. Achievable asks whether it is possible. Those are different questions, and only the first one is hard to lie to yourself about.

Writing each part, plainly

Take a vague goal and put it through the five words. Most of the value is in the first two.

• Specific. What exactly, in a sentence with no adjectives. Not get fit. Run 500 km.
• Measurable. A number you can count without arguing. If you cannot log it, you cannot track it.
• Assignable. Who is doing it. For a personal goal the answer is you, which sounds trivial until you notice how many goals are secretly waiting for someone else.
• Realistic. Possible with the time and resources you actually have, not the ones you would like to have.
• Time-related. A date. Without one, there is no finish line, so it never feels close.

SMART goal examples

Vague on the left, SMART on the right. The pattern is always the same: add a number and a date.

• Save more money → Save 1,000 by 31 December, at roughly 85 per month.
• Get fit → Run 500 km this year, tracked per run.
• Read more → Read 24 books this year, two a month.
• Meditate regularly → Meditate on 30 separate days before the end of March.
• Learn Spanish → Study Spanish for 100 days, 20 minutes a day.

What SMART does not do

SMART tells you whether a goal is well written. It does not tell you whether you will do it, and treating it as if it does is the main way it gets misused.

A perfectly SMART goal with no plan for the daily action behind it still fails. What closes that gap is deciding in advance when and where you will act, which is the single best-evidenced technique in this area: a review of 94 tests found a medium to large effect on follow-through. If-then plans cover it.

It also says nothing about how to handle a big goal. A one-year target written in SMART form is still a one-year target with no obvious first step, which is what breaking it into pieces is for.

And it says nothing about keeping going once you have started. That part is tracking, and it has its own evidence base.

The honest criticisms

SMART is useful and oversold. Three fair complaints, none of which are reasons to skip tracking the thing.

• It pushes you toward what is easy to measure. Things that are hard to count get quietly dropped, even when they matter more.
• Realistic can become an argument for aiming low. The framework has no way to tell caution from wisdom.
• It is a formatting rule, not a motivation system. It improves how a goal is written and does nothing about whether you show up on a Tuesday in February.

Frequently asked questions

What does SMART stand for?

In Doran's 1981 original: Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic and Time-related. The now-common Achievable and Relevant are later substitutions, not the source wording.

Who invented SMART goals?

George T. Doran, in the November 1981 issue of Management Review, in a paper titled There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives.

Do SMART goals actually work?

SMART improves how a goal is written, which is genuinely useful. It is not evidence-based as a motivation system, and the research on actually following through points at if-then plans and progress tracking instead.

What is a good SMART goal example?

Save 1,000 by 31 December at roughly 85 a month. It is specific, countable, clearly yours, plausible on most budgets, and dated.