Smart(er) Model: How to Stick to New Year's Resolutions

At the end of the year, there are many who make a list of resolutions to fulfill the following one: from doing more sport, even quitting smoking, going back to study are some of the most common points of that list

Some of them are recurring purposes that are repeated on that list year after year because they are never completely fulfilled. Although laziness, lack of will or lack of time or money are often blamed for this, the truth is that one of the The main reasons for this failure to achieve the proposed objectives is due to the fact that the purpose; that is, it is not previously applied what in coaching is known as a filter or Smart model, and that at D'Arte Human Business School we prefer to call Smarter.

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What is the Smart model

In Coaching the Smart model is used as a filter to define a purpose or objective as much as possible. When an objective is perfectly defined thanks to the steps of this model, it is easier to execute an action plan to really achieve it.

Smart is nothing more than the union of the acronyms (in English) of the different steps or phases of this purifying model of objectives and which are:

1. Specific

In this step, the purpose to be fulfilled must be detailed as much as possible.. For example, the purpose of 'lose weight' is extremely general. To accomplish this first step, a more specific objective would be: 'I want to lose 10 kilos from here to the beginning of the summer'. Generalities are distracting, but if we have something specific in mind it is easier to visualize it and, therefore, reach it.

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2. Measurable

Here it is time to establish how you will measure yourself the results obtained. That is to say, what will let you know that you are on the right track to achieve goals. For example, in the weight loss example above it's pretty easy: if I lose weight, I'm gaining it.

In other cases it is more difficult to establish a rigorous measurement, but it is possible to establish your own measurement system. Thus, when faced with an objective that is to go running twice a week, we can say that it will be known that it has been achieved if it is achieve that for at least two consecutive months every week the recurrence of going out for a run two days.

3. Attainable

This step of the model is not just thinking about whether it is a possible or impossible goal: it is define if at that moment, with the resources available, it is really achievable or it will be a failure again.

Thus, if someone who intends to quit smoking is currently experiencing a time of personal stress, perhaps this filter step will make them see that, perhaps, it is not possible to achieve it now.

4. Realistic

Although it seems very similar to the previous step, in this case it consists more in determining If you really have the degree of commitment necessary to achieve it and what are the real conditions for success. It may be one of the most important steps to define our objective: if there is no commitment and the objective achieved is not visualized, reaching it is practically a chimera.

5. Timely (Put in time)

This step of the Smart model consists of set the time in which you want to achieve, the beginning and end with which we will say that the objective has been achieved. If you can put an exact date, better. Here you have to be especially careful to be really realistic, as I said in the previous step: do not set deadlines that are too short if it is not feasible, but not extremely long either, which will probably cause the desire to disperse with the time.

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Smarter model: add an E and an R

At D'Arte Human Business School we make this model more complete by turning it into Smarter, that is, adding two more steps in the definition of the objective.

1. Ecological

This means analyzing whether to achieve my purpose is going to directly involve or affect someone to be able to take it into account and find, perhaps, how to achieve it without this implication being a problem.

2. Rewarding

If we really think about the true why of the objective, what we really achieve with it, and we visualize it, it is easier for it to actually be successfully achieved. Thus, beyond losing weight, the reward can be from being able to get into those jeans that that person has been wanting to wear for a long time, to not getting tired climbing stairs.

Smarter model, essential for a good coach

In D'Arte Human Business School We know that this model is one of the most important tools that a professional coach has to handle.

For this reason, in the different training courses in coaching that we offer at the school, such as the Master in Professional Coaching or the Expert in Coaching course, we make special emphasis on in-depth learning and practice of the Smarter model so that our students can help their clients achieve their purposes and objectives with guarantee of success.