Anyone else over SMART goals?

Well hey there,

As December winds down, I find myself at it again—staring at all the plans I had made last December for 2024. You know, those detailed, dependency-filled to-do lists for projects that, for one reason or another, I'd pivoted away from over the course of the year.

The me of last year would have looked at this and just seen a long list of evidence of my failure, but I’m happy to report that this year I felt different! Instead I saw this for what it was, a series of over-engineered and overly optimistic project plans that didn’t take into account the only constant in life—change.

See, over the course of this past year, those carefully planned out goals had started to feel more like a cage than the compass that I’d intended them to be. I’d started out with the best of intentions, rationalized by productivity research that told me that if I made my goals SMART then I could realistically achieve them. That if I focused on stacking my habits in just the right way, I could actually get it all done. But as I tightened my grip on the future, the plans actually became less realistic, the goals less likely to be achieved. So… how do we fix a broken compass?

We re-calibrate it! 🧭

Sometimes SMART doesn’t mean right

I decided to take the opposite approach and to think about things in a super-generic way instead. This felt like a good starting point, since the S in SMART goals literally stands for specific (the rest is measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). Diving into it, some of the goals I initially had for 2024 included:

• Write an 80K-word draft of my science fiction novel by the end of National Novel Writing Month in November

• Reduce my body fat percentage by 10% by my birthday in October

• Save 20% of every paycheck for a future big life purchase in 2025

These goals all followed the SMART goal structure, but in that rigidity lay the reality that failure was extremely easy. What if I couldn’t save any of my latest paycheck because an unexpected expense came up? Do I double-down on the next one, or keep rolling along with the unmotivating thought that I’ll be short of my big savings goal? Same applies to the science fiction novel, what if I decided I actually want to write a series of short stories instead? Does that mean that any words written for the science fiction novel don’t count?

Goals prime us for this kind of black-and-white thinking from the beginning of the year, especially as they get increasingly specific about what steps are needed in order to achieve the goal. We could shorten the length of that goal’s timeline, like the 12-week year does, but maybe this is more of a bandaid, rather than a solution, since there’s just a shorter timeline for the same rigid goal.

Guides over goals

This is where the concept of themes comes in, as an alternative to goals. Themes are designed to be much more generalized both in terms of the kind of outcome that they’ll produce and the way that they are going to get there. Instead of metrics, I like to think of themes as being guided by ✨ vibes ✨, and I’ve found themes to be much better for keeping me present and enjoying the process instead of just focused on achieving an end result.

So let’s look back at those goals I initially had in 2024, and do some abstraction to figure out the actual reason why I wanted to accomplish these things:

• Write an 80K word draft of my science fiction novel by the end of National Novel Writing Month in November Share stories with others about how the world’s future could look different

• Reduce my body fat percentage by 10% by my birthday in October 
  

• Save 20% of every paycheck for a future big life purchase in 2025 Make future financial decisions less scary by putting some money away for them now

Once I’d figured out the reasons why these were my goals in the first place, it was a lot easier to work backwards and find a less specific theme that could apply to what I wanted to accomplish. For 2024, I landed on the theme of “enjoying the process at my own pace”, and this gave me the flexibility to redefine what success looked like as needed throughout the year. The wins weren’t driven by proximity to pre-defined metrics anymore, instead I got to figure them out along the way. My theme worked as the compass I needed, nudging me back in the direction I wanted to be going in instead of forcing me to stay on a path I no longer wanted.

Your own 2025 theme

Since we’ve been trained for years to think with a goals-focused mindset, I find it's actually way easier to lean into that at the beginning and come up with a short-list of goals for the coming year—think max 6. Then, with those in hand, try working backwards to figure out the actual intention behind each goal. Your intention is likely going to stem from either wanting to feel a certain way, or avoid feeling a certain way, like wanting to connect with my body, or not wanting to feel stressed out by money. Hold onto those feelings that you want to have or avoid and get to brainstorming on what your theme could be. I find this guiding question helpful: "what mindset helps me have the feelings I want and avoid the feelings I don't?"

A few quick tips as you're crafting your theme:

1. Resist the urge to pick multiple themes—I know it's tempting! While you might have several areas you want to work on, choosing just one theme helps you prioritize what really matters to you right now. Think of it as giving yourself permission to focus.

2. If you're worried about your theme being too vague (like "Be Better") or too specific (like "Express Creativity Through Dance"), try anchoring it in how you want to feel. For instance, if you're focusing on finances, instead of "Be Better With Money", you might choose "Financial Confidence" as your theme. This keeps you focused on the feeling you're after while giving you flexibility in how you get there.

3. Let your current situation guide your theme's scope. If there's a particular area of your life calling for attention (like physical health or creative practice), it's perfectly fine to have a theme that focuses there. But if most areas of your life feel like they're humming along in maintenance mode, aim for a theme that can guide you in all areas of your life.

Now that you've found your theme, let's make sure it sticks around longer than the average New Year's resolution…

For my analog-loving friends:

• Create a cover page in your journal all about your theme and get artistic with it to make sure it’s something you’ll want to keep flipping back to,

• Make a bingo card in your planner where each square is a different experiment you want to try that relates to your theme. Even if you don’t do all the experiments you’ll probably get a bingo or two over the course of the year!

For the digital folks:

• Set up Yapp Reminders (or your favourite reminder app) to ping you at least once a day with your theme,

• Make a secure, theme-related password for something you login into regularly, that way every login becomes a tiny reminder of your intentions.

At this point, my 2025 theme is shaping up to be “Playing in Public” and I’m excited to try both the password and bingo cards as ways for present me to remind future me to keep that playful outlook.

Now it’s your turn: What theme is calling to you for 2025? And here's a fun challenge - let me know what's the most creative way you’re going to remind yourself about it? (Bonus points if it's weirder than my password idea) Hit reply - I'm genuinely curious about where your creativity takes you with this!

Until next time,
Alex

P.S. I launched my YouTube channel last week! Check out my first video where I’m having a little techo kaigi (Japanese for “planner meeting”) and chatting about my experiments with analog planners in 2024.