Do you have SMART goals & are they shared with others?

[wqo3wt76]

So to clarify my username, which I might have to change to "retired at 39" or something is that I was an enterprise account manager for 15 years for F1000 customers in high end IT. It was a soul-sucking job that paid well and was one part of a multifaceted approach to FIRE.

We achieved FIRE at 39 (wife is 35) not through one big hit (stock options or whatever) and not relying on a pension but by doing the right things every single day with singular focus over the last 18 years. Keeping expenses tight, investing in different asset classes, saving our asses off and associating with high net worth, high achievers. A huge part of that is having goals that people I care about hold me to account.

 

[Mo Money]

wqo3wt76: A perfectly legit viewpoint. But I won't buy it.

 

[Mo Money]

Mo Money - have you given any kind of thought to the possibility that the OP might actually be your boss?

Actually, she's just the Marketing Director. In truth, she's the most well-meaning person in the world. She's half my age. She's never sold a thing, but she does try - hard - to help us. But she's just doing what all the other firm marketing directors are doing.

BTW, I am actually a huge fan of goals. I just think that people have to decide to motivate themselves, and can't be told to pigeon-hole that motivation by using a rigid formula. Me? I scrawl my goals on a beat-up index card in my pocket. And Kudos to wqo3wt76 if SMART goals work for him. He's welcome to use them effectively (and it sounds like he has!)

 

[martyp]

I always liked SMART goals . . . at w*rk. Now that I am ER'd my life isn't that complicated and I'm plenty motivated to achieve what I want to achieve.

 

[growing_older]

I have always HATED the so-called SMART goals and cannot imagine using them if someone doesn't make me. I do like having goals and plans. But specifically manipulating the details to fit a made-up HR acronym is both a waste of time and serious detraction from actually accomplishing the goals. Spending my career on the producing side of the company where I need to actually make something for the company to thrive, I resent some self appointed HR person declaring the "right" way to set goals and making a lot of make-work activity suddenly REQUIRED in order to have goals in the proper format on the proper forms. Not only are they themselves a waste of time and salary, but they make others in the company waste time as well to satisfy their absolutely pointless mandates. Count me as very actively opposed to using SMART goals for anything. Ever.

I do like goals and plans. But not the SMART system as it has been forced on me at every company I've ever worked for.

 

[brewer12345]

Ok - I get it, you guys HATE when corporations use things like goals to drive behaviors.

I should have been more specific - 99% of what we use SMART goals for are personal and financial goals, NOT for work. Goals like having $5M in investment accounts by 12/31/2015 or some such.

Most of us went to great lengths for a number of years to escape this kind of bullcrap in the workplace. I quite frankly would rather cut off a toe (or better yet, your toe) than let this garbage into my real life. If it works for you, great. But you must not have read many posts here if you thought we would all start singing the company fight song.

 

[growing_older]

Originally Posted by wqo3wt76
Ok - I get it, you guys HATE when corporations use things like goals to drive behaviors.

Well, if I ever saw a company actually use goals to drive behaviors, then maybe I would have a different opinion. I've never seen any SMART goals that came anywhere close to that. About the best I've seen is incentivizing some peripheral task that isn't essential to producing products. Mostly the goals set up conflicts between what actually needed to happen to deliver on time and on budget, and what needed to be done to score the maximum points in the goal system.

Maybe SMART goals can work in a repetitive factory environment, like they were originally designed for. Or in a sales environment where there are quotas. In an engineering environment they were a disaster.

 

[ERD50]

...

I should have been more specific - 99% of what we use SMART goals for are personal and financial goals, NOT for work. Goals like having $5M in investment accounts by 12/31/2015 or some such.

OK, I follow you now. The other responses were just good-natured (well, mostly ), Pavlovian responses to our former lives and workplace goal setting.

I think this response sums it up pretty well for me too:

I always liked SMART goals . . . at w*rk. Now that I am ER'd my life isn't that complicated and I'm plenty motivated to achieve what I want to achieve.

If I do have a time sensitive project that I want to get done sure, I'll fall back on the old goal setting/monitoring methods, even spreadsheets to track it all. But I guess that's all second nature to me now, I don't think I need any acronyms to get it done.

But if it helps you, that's great.

Though I really no longer have financial goals like that. I'm not accumulating anymore. I just watch spending and stay diversified.

-ERD50

 

[In-control]

Hummm - that's a term we use at work and that is to be avoided.

Here are the goals that I have live by since I was 12! They have served me well.

> Save 50% of your income - Live on the rest
> Invest in Index's and not individual stocks or bonds
> Take educated risks on things that you understand - say 5% of your portfolio in an Index'ed REIT
> Invest every bonus, extra cash, windfalls
> invest most aggressively in your retirement accounts and less in non retirement
> Re-invest income in retirement accounts and to a sweep account in non-retirement ones
> Re-allocate in 5% increments - when something is 5% over allocated - reallocate.
> When close to retirement work towards 5 years of living expenses in laddered CD's - massive stress reducer
> Debt is a bad deal - avoid it - cash and flexibility are king

 

[wqo3wt76]

Hummm - that's a term we use at work and that is to be avoided.

Here are the goals that I have live by since I was 12! They have served me well.

> Save 50% of your income - Live on the rest
> Invest in Index's and not individual stocks or bonds
> Take educated risks on things that you understand - say 5% of your portfolio in an Index'ed REIT
> Invest every bonus, extra cash, windfalls
> invest most aggressively in your retirement accounts and less in non retirement
> Re-invest income in retirement accounts and to a sweep account in non-retirement ones
> Re-allocate in 5% increments - when something is 5% over allocated - reallocate.
> When close to retirement work towards 5 years of living expenses in laddered CD's - massive stress reducer
> Debt is a bad deal - avoid it - cash and flexibility are king

Nice - thanks for sharing. What I was hoping to hear from others but we somehow got tangled up in how much everyone hated goals

 

[walkinwood]

... but we somehow got tangled up in how much everyone hated goals

I think you got it wrong. We don't hate goals - none of us would be here if we didn't have them.

We just hate corporate acronyms like SMART.

But.. power to you - whatever sails your boat.

 

[chris2008]

Well, when DH & me decided that we want to save the amount of x so that we are able to ER in the year 2013 we thought we were really smart.
And I think our goal was also specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time related.
I like goals that I set for myself.
I hated goals that were imposed on me by my bosses with a lot of pomp and circumstance.

 

[wqo3wt76]

Ok - fine, of course I wish I hadn't used the acronym but whatever.

What I would like to hear more about, since I'm new at this whole FIRE thing and all, is once you have achieved FIRE, what goals (let's stick to finances) if any are important & new for the later part of life?

And I agree - goals someone else sets for you are useless.

 

[JacqJolie]

Goals are sometimes too limiting - try this:
Scott Adams Blog: Goals vs. Systems 11/18/2013

 

[MichaelB]

Nothing personal. It's just what unites us here is "not worK' and this was sounding like "back to work"

What I would like to hear more about, since I'm new at this whole FIRE thing and all, is once you have achieved FIRE, what goals (let's stick to finances) if any are important & new for the later part of life?

Well, outliving my portfolio is my only real financial goal. Everything else financial is secondary.

 

[brett]

We had a number of goals based on timeframe....

-never incur consumer debt
-live on one income so spouse could stay at home
-pay off mortgage
-have children complete post secondary with no debt/student loans
-have enough resources to retire even if megacorp db plan did not payout as predicted (fortunately it has paid out)
-have a healthy lifestyle so that we can enjoy our retirement to the fullest
-have enough resources to retire early and travel
-have enough resources to travel where we want and when we want
-have enough resources to establish edu plan for grandchild
-have enough resources to establish trust fund for both children


As one goal is reached, another pops up. We have been fortunate enough to achieve all but the last one so far.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I'm a huge fan of using goals to shape my future and drive daily activities towards short, medium & long term goals of import.

One thing that has worked extremely well has been sharing those goals with a close friend and reviewing them often. We discuss goals on a weekly basis and do a big review at the end of the year to gauge progress.
...

We cover three main areas - personal, financial & career.
...
Our implementation is using OneNote from MSFT, allowing instant, anywhere access to all the goals for the week, month, year & 5-year for regular review and editing, as well as accountability.

Hmm, the time it would take for DH and me to discuss and come up with weekly, monthly, yearly, and five-year goals would way exceed the time it would take to achieve them (not to mention the measuring of the achievement and then the post-achievement assessment of same, right?).

But what I am really curious about is that you share these goals with a close friend (using OneNote?), discuss them on a weekly basis, and then have a big review at the end of the year.

At least you will know what you will do with your free time in retirement.

But I also think we all have different goals both before and after retirement. How do you expect yours to change, wqo3wt76?

 

[brewer12345]

Ok - fine, of course I wish I hadn't used the acronym but whatever.

What I would like to hear more about, since I'm new at this whole FIRE thing and all, is once you have achieved FIRE, what goals (let's stick to finances) if any are important & new for the later part of life?

And I agree - goals someone else sets for you are useless.

Easy - don't **** up.

Non-financial goals are far more important at this point in my life.

 

[HFWR]

We used to have Special Highly Important Tasks...

 

[MRG]

OK,
I fess up my comments about smart goals were a past life coming back to haunt me.

Yes, I have informal goals that I use. Smart actually makes sense, I was doing it long before it became a management buzzword, just a natural process to me. This is actually a great thread, never gave enough thought to the non-monetary goals. I will spend some time reviewing those and create a plan.

 

[Options]

They're just goals. SMART is just another one of those obnoxious phrases from the business buzz word junk yard. Much like the latest word: "transparent". Anyone who says they're "transparent" I immediately distrust. No one can ever be transparent in business. Not ever. If they say they are, you know they're lying or hiding something.

 

[imoldernu]

Am guessing that the precursor for SMART was Management by Objectives.
Ah yes... remember it well. 1978. Most of my co-workers dashed off a one page recap of their current work assignments and the interactions with others.
I turned in a 7 page list of my work links and interactions between departments. Indirectly, this little exercise turned into a promotion to the home office, and my previous position being split into two job descriptions, for which two people were hired... each at my old salary.
"'Tis an ill wind..."

 

[MRG]

They're just goals. SMART is just another one of those obnoxious phrases from the business buzz word junk yard. Much like the latest word: "transparent". Anyone who says they're "transparent" I immediately distrust. No one can ever be transparent in business. Not ever. If they say they are, you know they're lying or hiding something.

Transparent is new? I thought I made it it go out of style in the early 80s. A major upgrade to the online systems; management sent out notice to all customers(big banks, financial institutions etc.) the upgrade would be 'transparent' to them. Well there was a big issue, about 72 hours later service was restored for several thousand users.

My manager used to laugh about transparent, 'so is an airplane propeller at full throttle'.

 

[Mulligan]

Not a true goal setter anymore either but I will toss a few financial goals in which I have. 1) Save 25% of take home pension check and put no more than 1/3 of it in stock market. 2) annually shop for better deals on home, health and auto insurance 3) annually threaten to leave Direct TV and ATT internet to reduce monthly bill. 4) keep looking at new cars for entertainment, but resist buying and keep the old one running until it won't, to save on property taxes, insurance, and depletion of my net worth. Nothing here exactly that is exciting.


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[wqo3wt76]

OK,
I fess up my comments about smart goals were a past life coming back to haunt me.

Yes, I have informal goals that I use. Smart actually makes sense, I was doing it long before it became a management buzzword, just a natural process to me. This is actually a great thread, never gave enough thought to the non-monetary goals. I will spend some time reviewing those and create a plan.

Glad you like the discussion, though I'm shocked at the level of negativity from others. Seems rather toxic.

Let's ignore the company, management & other negativity that seem to turn people off.

You tell your best friend that you are going to run 10 miles on Wednesday, at an 8:00 pace. Now you are accountable. On sunday night when your friend says, hey, I thought this was important to you - what the hell happened? Accountability is extremely powerful.

Now if your friends are fat, lazy & drunk this might not be a good example...