Writing Smart Goals

Suppose your goal is “to have a better marriage.” That’s a good idea, but it is not really a goal yet. Until you write it in such a way that it empowers you to move toward it, all you have is a wish. So let’s turn it into a goal.

Step 1:
How do you determine where you need to set goals? Jesus established 5 goal areas for His church. At CAML we state them as “Love, Serve, Reach, Grow, Connect.” Use these main headings to identify areas you should be targeting.
1. How’s our Love life with God and each other?
2. How well do we serve our spouse’s dreams and visions?
3. How effective are we are reaching every part of our spouse’s life?
4. Are we investing in the healthy growth of our marriage?
5. Have we identified marriages we admire and what are we doing to connect with those couples?
You may not need to set goals in each area. Sometimes too many goals are overwhelming. Remember, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Or, maybe you are strong in several of the areas but have an obvious area that could use improvement. An easy way to measure this is just give yourselves a grade from 1 to 10, 1 being low and 10 being high, in each area. Then pick your lowest area to set your first goals. For our example, let’s suppose you want to increase your Love level.

Step 2:
Now use the SMART goals model to write your goals. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-Oriented, Timetable)
1. Specific: We are going to increase our time spent together with God.
2. Measurable:
Each night before going to sleep we will pray out loud for each other, led by the husband. We will do this either in person, or by phone if we are away from each other.
We will worship together in a church service at least ____ times a month.
We will each share one verse from the Bible each week and why that verse was important to us.
3. Achievable: all the above action items are ‘do-able’.
4. Results-oriented: Each action item moves us toward our goal of increasing our Love life with each other and God.
5. Timetable: Each action item has a time to be accomplished.

Step 3:
Now use the 4 growth areas defined in Luke 2:52 (wisdom, physical, spiritual, social) to help you develop strategies for accomplishing your goal.
1. Wisdom: Each of us will read at least one book (or listen to a teaching series) every 3 months about growing closer to God as a couple.
2. Stature (physical): Each of us will make an effort to make our prayer time before bed conducive to intimacy with God and each other.
3. Spiritual: Each of us will spend more time in our cars and home listening to worship music that draws us closer to God.
4. Social: We will identify couples whose relationship with God we admire and will find ways to connect with them.