Beyond SMART Goals: Embracing the Unfolding Journey of Personal Growth
I have long prided myself on setting clear goals and achieving them. Throughout my life, these goals have been anchored in external achievements – from academic grades to career promotions, personal finance milestones, and even company revenue and funding targets.
However, as I leaned into coaching, which paralleled my journey into midlife and parenthood, my focus pivoted toward internal growth. I embraced goals like fostering presence, patience, responsiveness, embodied living, and self-compassion - all aimed at becoming a better leader, parent, and human being overall.
It wasn't until engaging in my Year-End Reflection process just this past Winter that a profound realization struck me. My approach to internal development wasn’t much different than my approach to external achievement - and this was counterproductive. During my review, I found it challenging to list significant achievements - as it was a hard year mired in a mix of personal and global struggle. I was not used to feeling like I didn’t move the ball forward significantly. This feeling was unsettling, and of course, my Inner Critic spared no effort in highlighting my perceived shortfall and leading me to feel even worse.
A conversation with a close friend and fellow coach led to an A-ha moment. I was conflating ‘becoming’ and ‘achieving’. I had my high-achiever hat on and was trying to SMART goal my way to some finish line where my best self was celebrated. But unlike tangible achievements, personal growth is not as straightforward to quantify or realize in-the-moment. It demands consistent effort and awareness, without a definitive endpoint.
When I asked my high-achiever to kindly take a back seat, I was able to tap into Self to access what I truly know:
Personal growth is a commitment to the process (aka “trust the process”), often with incremental and hard-to-notice short-term changes. Yet, these small shifts can cumulatively lead to significant growth over time.
Unlike business growth, personal growth does not typically exhibit the kind of ‘hockey stick’ growth we talk about in high-growth businesses. It's more akin to a J-curve, where initial phases might seem challenging and ambiguous before leading to meaningful change and growth.
You can’t shame your way to growth.
Your value and worth are not tied to checking boxes and achieving goals.
From this place, I could zoom out and allow a broader perspective to emerge. I recognized the subtle yet crucial shifts I had made over the year, and more importantly, how these changes contributed to significant growth over the last five years.
This revelation is not unique to me. Many high-performers, across various fields, including coaches, often view self-improvement through an achievement-oriented lens. This perspective, while seemingly goal-centric, can lead to disappointment and a focus on perceived deficiencies. Personal development is more about realizing and unfolding what already lies within us. It's rooted in awareness, acceptance, abundance, and love, often characterized by gradual, incremental progress rather than swift leaps.
I invite you to ponder the following:
What defines a successful year for you?
How do you differentiate success from fulfillment?
Do you focus more on outcomes or processes? How does this impact you?
Are you driven by external validations or internal values? How does this shape your perspective?
How do your expectations of different types of growth align or differ? What adjustments might you consider?