What is the Purpose of a SMART goal?
Mar 03, 2026Summary
Does the phrase "SMART goal" feel like a cold corporate buzzword that has no place in your spiritual life? Most people use this system to drive themselves into burnout. But for a Christian woman, these metrics are actually the tools of a wise steward. In this tactical episode of the Arise, Women of God podcast, host Tamara K. Anderson joins advisory board member and expert goal setter Amanda Powell to answer the important question: What is the purpose of a SMART goal?
We move from dreaming about a mansion to actually laying the bricks by breaking down the SMART acronym (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Bound) through the lens of faith. Amanda shares how to "reverse engineer" the big vision God has given you into quarterly objectives and daily wins. We also discuss the game-changing "3-Week Check-In"—a progress monitoring strategy that gives you the flexibility to course-correct before you fail. If you have been struggling with vague overwhelm or feeling guilty when life (like a two-week flu) derails your plans, this episode will teach you how to give yourself grace and measure the "Gain" rather than the "Gap." Tune in to turn your "I should" into an "I will!"
Episode Takeaways
- The SMART Acronym: A goal must be Specific (start with "I will..."), Measurable (e.g., 1 hour a day, 200 words), Achievable, Realistic (don't plan a novel trilogy in a year if you've never written a page), and Time-Bound.
- Reverse Engineering: Amanda explains how to break down a massive 1-year goal (like getting a child to read 100 words a minute) into quarterly objectives (like hitting 40 words a minute by Q1). This prevents overwhelm and makes the daily steps obvious.
- The 3-Week Check-In: Goals are not written in stone. If you set a quarterly objective, check your progress in three or four weeks. If you aren't on track, you have permission to course-correct or adjust the goal before you fail. Flexibility is key!
- Measure the Gain, Not the Gap: When life throws a curveball (like Tamara getting sick for two weeks), don't measure the "gap" of what you missed. Measure the "gain" of what you did accomplish, even if it's just a 10-minute walk while recovering.
Resources
Are you ready to reverse engineer your big vision into daily wins? Download our FREE Guide to Goal Setting. It will help you figure out what God wants you to do and then break it down into a SMART goal format. 👉 Download the Guide Here: https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/offers/WyaLn2gS/checkout
Need accountability? Check out our Women Warriors Accountability Group for free for two weeks! https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/join-now
Reflection Questions
- Look at one of your current goals. Is it vague ("I will write a book") or SMART ("I will write 200 words a day for the next 30 days")? How can you make it more specific today?
- If you set a massive goal for the end of the year, what does your quarterly objective need to be to ensure you are on track?
- How do you usually respond when an unexpected illness or crisis derails your goal? Do you quit, or do you give yourself grace to adjust the baseline?
- What is one "Gain" you can celebrate this week instead of focusing on the "Gap" of what you didn't finish?
Transcript
Tamara K. Anderson
00:00:00.800 - 00:01:42.120
Does the phrase smart goal feel like a cold corporate buzzword that has no place in your spiritual life? Most people use this system to drive themselves harder. But for a Christian woman, these metrics are actually the tools of a wise steward.
Today we're asking the important question, what is the purpose of a smart goal? And by the end of this episode, you will understand how to reverse engineer the vision God has given you into daily winds.
Solving the pain of vague overwhelm by turning I should into I will. We're moving from dreaming about a mansion to actually laying the bricks. Stay tuned. Ordinary women, extraordinary faith. When God calls, we say yes.
The Arise Women of God Podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God Podcast. I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson.
And joining me today is Amanda Powell of our Women warriors of Light Advisory board and expert goal setter. And we're getting tactical with our testimony today. First, we'll break down the smart acronym through the lens of faith.
Second, we'll discuss progress monitoring and how to know if you're on target within just three weeks. And finally, we'll share. Why measure the gain and not the gap is the only way to sustain momentum.
But first, let's kick it off with Amanda defining smart goals.
Amanda Powell
00:01:42.760 - 00:04:03.160
A goal has got to be smart, and that's an acronym telling you all of the pieces that you need in a goal, which is so important. Specific, specific, specific meaning. You're going to start your goal with I will what? I will what are you filling in the blank? Right.
So I will write a book. Okay, you want to write a book. Well, you're going to break that down. So I will write a book by when, okay? When and what type of book?
Like, start getting super specific. It's got to be measurable. The only way that it's going to be measurable is you're moving steps towards it, right?
So the way that I like to do this is let's say that I'm doing. Let's say I'm doing a reading goal, okay? And it's going to be for one of my kids, okay?
My child is going to read 100 words per minute with 90% accuracy. That's my measurable part, that accuracy. So you see what I'm doing? That's the goal. This is how I'm measuring it, okay?
With it, with the 90% accuracy with less than one prompt. And then I'm going to add a date by. And I add a date, okay? So if this is a year ago, there's my date, okay? So you can see the important parts.
And this works for anything. I will what? Get specific. Okay. It's got to be measurable 90 accuracy. Okay. So I'm gonna write a book and I'm going to write one hour a day.
That's your measurable part. One hour a day. Okay. Or maybe you put word count. I am going to put down 200 words on a page. Okay. That's your something measurable. Okay.
And then make sure it's realistic. Okay. You can't say, I'm going to write a series like I've never written a book.
So an unrealistic goal for me would be, I'm going to write a novel series and I'm going to have three books written in a year. Right. I know nothing about writing, nothing about writing. Like, even when I write something or I tell or I tell Siri something, right.
She usually always gets it wrong because I'm not the greatest. Like it's going to take me a while if I wanted to write a series that's not realistic.
So make it realistic, something that you really can achieve or you're going to get really, really down on yourself. Like, this is not going to be a fun process for you. And then time bound, it has to have a time that it ends.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:04:03.890 - 00:04:27.810
I love it. Specific and realistic.
If we set a goal to write a trilogy in a year when we've never written a single page, we aren't being faithful, we are being unrealistic. But once you have a realistic goal, you have to break it down into quarterly objectives. To Amanda, she calls this reverse engineering.
Amanda Powell
00:04:28.530 - 00:05:47.540
Goals do not have to be written in stone. Okay. Know that you may start out with a goal and life may throw you a curveball and that goal may need to be adjusted.
That's the beautiful part of progress monitoring your goals. So when I'm telling you objectives, that's what I'm talking about. So here we have this big goal, okay.
I said my child was going to read, say 100 words a minute with 90 accuracy, okay. And this is going to be in a year from today. Okay. So my first objective, I'm going to break that down into quarterly objectives.
So my first quarter, let's say the baseline is my, my kid is reading 20 words a minute and I want them to 100. Okay? I'm going to reverse engineer that and I'm going to work on, we're going to get you from 20 words.
And this first objective, I need you reading, I need that doubled. I need you reading 40 words. Okay?
We're going to read 40 words by the end of this quarter with Maybe it's not 90% accuracy, maybe it's a little lower now because I like high goals, I'm probably going to keep it 90% because I brought the word count down right? So I want those, those 40 words that we get. I want those 90% correct. Okay.
The beautiful part about the objectives is within three or four weeks, you know, if you're on target to make that objective and if I'm not, I can course correct.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:05:48.180 - 00:07:45.130
That three week check in is a game changer. It gives you permission to be flexible. Doesn't that sound nice to have a little wiggle room? Remember, your goals are not written in stone.
They are written in partnership with a God who knows when to speed up and when you need to hunker down. This is where we have to choose to measure the gain and not the gap.
And I, I love that you're giving ourselves permission to have grace because things are going to come up. In the middle of last year, in the middle of crazy goals, I got sick for like two weeks. Like I was in bed flat on my back.
I had some flu bug come through. And you better believe that it shut down my goals pretty fast. Like, I wasn't able to exercise.
I was barely making it out of the bed, into the kitchen, grabbing some food and getting back in bed. So sometimes goals fail because things out of our control happen. And so just remember, give yourself a little bit of grace there. Hey, this happened.
I couldn't control it. Believe me, I did not want to be sick.
So just as you ease back into health, maybe you're going to have to start at a lower measuring point because I'm not going to go from that to walking my 45 minutes a day.
In fact, I remember my friends walking with me the first time I walked after that and what used to take me a 20 minute loop, it took me like 30 minutes. I was walking slow and I was just huffing and puffing because I was recovering. So allow for flexibility and say, you know what?
I used to have this goal. It's going to have to change from what it was to where I am right this minute. And that's okay. Don't get down on yourself. One of my favorite sayings with goals is measure the gain and not the gap.
Amanda Powell
00:07:45.130 - 00:07:46.410
The gap, yeah.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:07:46.410 - 00:09:04.599
And so make sure that you are saying, guess what? Last week I didn't walk at all because I was sick. This week I'm gonna walk 10 minutes and see how I do with that. That might be a stretch for me.
I don't know, but start with easing yourself back into it. Was it what you did two months ago? No. It's okay. It's okay. So, giving ourselves grace so that we don't completely fail with our goals.
The purpose of a smart goal isn't to make you work harder. It's to help you see how much God is doing in your life. When you make it plain, you see the miracles.
If you're ready to reverse engineer your big vision, go download our guide to goal setting for Christian Women. It'll help you figure out what God wants you to do, and then you can break it down into your smart goals, which you have just learned to do.
And if you want to join a community of women who are measuring the gain together, go check out our Women warriors of Light accountability group. The links for both of these things are in the description. So, my friends, take one purposeful step today and move towards your goal.
And until next time, may you arise. Do it God's way, God strong.
