Posted on January 18, 2010 by Kurt Shuster

Most coaches know about SMART goals – ones that are Specific, Measurable, Attractive, Realistic, and Time-framed. The idea is that the more a goal meets these criteria, the more likely a person is to achieve it. So the goal “I will lose weight” could be made SMART by re-writing it as “I will lose 20 pounds and be down to my old weight of 170 pounds by my birthday next year.” Research, however, has shown that there is a lot more to goal achievement than the way we phrase our goals.

Specifically, researchers who study goal-related behavior differentiate between goal intentions (i.e. what goals I hope to accomplish) and implementation intentions (what actions I intend to do to accomplish them). See the table below for some examples.

Goal Intention	Implementation Intention
Lose 20 pounds	I will only buy only nonfat milk
Get into better shape	I will go to the gym straight from work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays
Have better eating habits	I will not eat after 8 o’clock pm

Specify When & Where

Just like writing SMART goals makes them more effective, researchers have discovered ways to make implementations intentions more effective, too. Specifically, the best implementation intentions are ones that specify when and where a behavior is to be performed.

In a recent study, psychologists Pascal Sheeran and Thomas Webb at the University of Sheffield, along with Peter Gollwitzer at New York University asked students to write how many hours they intended to study in the coming week (their goal intentions). They then asked half of the students to write down when and where they intend to study, e.g. “2 to 4 pm. at the library” (their implementation intentions). The other half of the participants were asked to write down only their goal intentions (how many hours they intended to study) but not their specific implementation intentions (when and where). A week later, students in the “when and where” group had studied significantly more hours than those who were not asked to specify a place and time.

The bottom line is that for every goal your client has, it’s not enough to make them SMART – they also need to specify clear and unambiguous implementation intentions, ideally ones that include a place and time.

Coaching activity – make commitments with a place and time

Now that you know the importance of place and time in goal achievement, here’s a simple activity you can do with your clients to improve their likelihood of success.

1. Go through each of their goals and select two or three high priority goals to work on. Remember the “less is more” rule – the fewer goals, the better.
2. For each goal, re-write it as a SMART goal (clicking on this link will take you to a more detailed description of how to do this).
3. For each SMART goal, ask your client to commit to two or three implementation actions and write them down. Make sure each commitment specifies a place and a time, if appropriate.
4. Finally, make sure your client writes down their commitments and posts them in a place where they can be easily seen, for example next to their computer screen, on their bathroom mirror, etc. If you are using Noomii’s client management tools, your client can even have their goals and commitments emailed to them every day.

Example goal:

I want to do better in math class.
Make it SMART:
I will get an A average in my calculus class that finishes in May of next year. This will help me achieve my dream of going to med school when I finish my undergrad degree.

Example commitments that include a “place and time”:

• I will study algebra for one hour a day, Monday to Wednesday, at my dinner table as soon I get home from class at 5pm.
• I will show up for my calculus classes at least five minutes before they start so that I’m not late.
• I will go to the free math tutor help sessions every Wednesday at noon at the student center.

Did you know? Noomii’s coaching page lets you and your client write down SMART goals and commitments. Here’s a screenshot that show how the above goal and commitments would look: