With our “why” defined, we now have a solid foundation to establish “what” our goals will actually be.

You can follow the SMART Method, an approach that’s commonly attributed to Peter Drucker’s Management by Objectives concept.

Your goal should be:

• Specific (i.e. clear and unambiguous)
• Measurable (i.e. quantifiable)
• Achievable (i.e. realistic)
• Relevant (i.e. makes sense given your interests, knowledge, expertise, and/or circumstances)
• Time-bound (i.e. has a set start and end date).

Now that we’ve defined the parameters of the SMART framework, let’s see how powerful it can be at creating more clear and actionable goals.

Low quality goal: I want to make more money.

High quality goal: I want to earn an additional $1,000 in supplemental revenue through Medium’s partner program by the end of this year

We’ve now tackled “the why” and “the what” behind our goals which means we can officially move onto “the how”.

You can have the most actionable, measurable goals on the planet, but none of that matters if we don’t actually follow through with them.

One can set the metric of accountability by establishing OKRs(Objectives and Key Results) that are directly related to the goals.

The benefit of doing so is that it keeps you accountable and provides you with quantifiable targets that you can measure your progress against.