SMART Goals

I recently heard a great story about a guy named Garry Kasparov. Kasparov won his first world-championship chess match in 1985 and he dominated the chess world for several decades. Through that experience, there were some lessons he learned. Here is one of them: “A Grandmaster makes the best moves because they are based on what he wants the board to look like ten or twenty moves into the future.” That’s a great picture of what goal-setting is all about. It is making moves now based on what you want your life to look like 10 or 20 years from now.

As we cross into a New Year, what do you want your life to look like at the end of the year? By knowing what the goal is, you can plan better the journey you must take in order to get there. The goals you set will help establish a track in your life; a roadmap to follow.

In youth this week, we talked through five qualities of a SMART goal. Here they are:

1. Spirit Given – God must give our goals to us. It is His roadmap for our lives that we must follow.


2. Measurable – It must be quantitative and objective in nature.


3. Adjustable – Like a rudder on a ship or a steering wheel on a car, goals need to be adjustable with time.


4. Realistic – A sumo wrestler probably won’t set a world record for the 100m dash or open a successful clinic to help anorexics.


5. Timeframe – Understand a goal may be accomplished a lot sooner or may take more time than originally anticipated.

Read Philippians 3:12-14. 

• How does this passage of Scripture challenge you in the area of goal setting?


• What are some goals have you set and already accomplished in life?


• What actions or behaviors did you have to take in order to meet those goals?


• What are some goals that you've set and not yet accomplished?


• What do you need to do in order to accomplish those goals?