Common Sense: Goals should be SMART.  The acronym stands for specific, measureable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.  This seems to make perfect sense to most people.  Unless, of course, you are a contrarian goldfish!

Contrarian Thought on Specific Goals 

The idea that you should have specific goals is very nice, except that you cannot predict the future and you need to be flexible to change course as circumstances change. As the old Chinese proverb says, predictions are very dangerous, especially those that pertain to the future.

Contrarian Thought on Measureable Goals

What drives people is emotion. It is visualizing yourself looking great after losing weight.  It’s seeing yourself spending more time on the things that you like to do.  The best goals are the ones that are closely tied to very strong feelings and emotions.  How do you measure feelings and emotion?  

Contrarian Thought on Achievable Goals

The great majority of people in the world are convinced that they can’t achieve great things, so they settle for mediocre, or in other words, achievable goals.  Achievable goals will not inspire you, and at the very first resistance point you will give up because the end result is not motivating enough for you to go the extra mile.

Contrarian Thought on Realistic Goals

Competition is much higher for realistic goals.  It is easier to raise $10 million for an exciting innovative business idea than it is to raise $1 million for a “me-too” venture.  Most people are afraid of big “unrealistic” goals.  Therefore they compete for average instead of going for the big win.  Boys tend to ask average looking girls out because they are intimidated by a great looking girl, leaving less competition for the few courageous guys that take their chances.

Contrarian Thought on Time-Bound Goals

It is more important that you make progress towards your goal each and every day than to set some arbitrary date for achieving your goal.  The most important time-related aspect of goal setting is that you take immediate action towards the goal.  What happens if you don’t achieve the goal by the arbitrary date that you set, as is often the case?   You become discouraged and disillusioned and are like to give up on the goal.

SMART goals are not necessarily so.

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