Hi!!
Well, as I promised, here is the next installment of my Vision/Goals Book.
One of the things that I am working on is to improve my chances of buying a house. Now, we all know w
hat that means, right? Good credit AND a miracle from God!! So, I know that I need to do my part in the natural world and let God do His thing in the Kingdom… so here it is.
The Road to Good Credit leads to Buying a House. On the Road to Good Credit page, I will list the specific actions I need to take to ensure I achieve this goal. On the Buying a House page, I will list the specific deal-breaker criteria for selecting the home and therefore solidifying in my mind what it is exactly that I am looking for (see explanation and goal statement below). The pictures on these pages serve as visual reminders and programming language for my brain — because you know my house is da bomb!
The photos of the house were taken in Victorville, CA, at a model home I visited with my friend Amarachi during the Christmas 2007 season. She loves interior design and so one of her pastimes is to visit model homes for great home decor inspiration! And I was definitely inspired.
I plan to type the SMART Goal statements and place them in the “empty” Top Notes. In order to enhance your chances of successfully achieving your goal, the goal statement needs to be written in a SMART Goal format.
Here is an example of a common goal statement that you will hear:
Buy a house.
That is a worthy goal, but it’s lacking pizazz and color and, well lots of other things to make it achievable. So let’s pick it apart a bit. I must ask you a question. Is this goal SPECIFIC? (SPECIFIC is the “S” in SMART). Is there any information about what kind of home, size of the home, location of the home, price-range, etc?
Uhhhh, in a word, “no!”
So let’s revise the goal to make it more SPECIFIC.
Buy a three-bedroom Spanish-style house under $200,000 in Southern California.
Okay, now we’re getting better, but I may have stepped on the toes of “REALISTIC” when I stated a $200,000 home in Southern California, but this is a BIG goal. I just have to trust God to do the miracle.
Let’s look at whether or not the goal is MEASURABLE — the “M” in SMART. How will we measure the completion of this goal? A goal becomes measurable when you have identified specific criteria for measuring progress against those goals. In this case, I either buy the house or not. Simple as that!
The next area to evaluate is where or not the goal is ATTAINABLE or ACTIONABLE. I could revise the goal to read:
Buy a three-bedroom Spanish-style house under $300,000 in Southern California.
Changing the price of the home makes it more “ATTAINABLE.”
The final two letters in the word SMART are R and T. R stands for REALISTIC and T stands for TIME-BOUND. The current goal statement is NOT time-bound. Depending on the the time-frame stated for completion, the goal will then be REALISTIC or NOT. I’ve observed that it has taken two other single mothers around 2-3 years to reach their goal of home ownership, so I will revise my goal once again to take this into consideration. So, here goes:
Buy a three-bedroom, two-bathroom Spanish-style house with two-car garage and guest house or rental unit under $300,000 in Southern California (North Long Beach, Cerritos, Cypress, South Compton near horse properties, or Rancho Dominguez) by December 31, 2011.
So there you have it: the SMART Goal setting process in a nutshell. You can see that I revised the goal to make it even more specific. The rationale is each piece of information clearly states what I want in the house to make sure it meets my criteria! That makes the goal Measurable.
Thank you for letting me share a bit of what I’ve been learning along the way and finally applying! 🙂
Supplies List
Paper:
Whisper White Textured Card Stock (12″ x 12″)
Urban Garden Designer Series Paper
Kiwi Kiss Card Stock (8-1/2″ x 11″)
Baja Breez Card Stock (8-1/2″ x 11″)
Not Quite Navy Card Stock (8-1/2″ x 11″)
Accessories:
Big Shot Die Cutting Machine
Top Note Bigz Die
Birds and Blooms Sizzlet Die
Swirl Sizzlet Die
Paper Cutter
Images (except those from the model home) were collected from the Internet.