Ikigai: Smart Goals

Finding your Ikigai creates a life full of purpose, your why, or the reason for living.

Once you have found your Ikigai, next on the agenda is actually to achieve it. To live it.

Living your Ikigai can be a lifetime journey and, in some cases, a never-ending pursuit of happiness.

Your Ikigai aligns your actions with your values, beliefs, and aspirations.

Your Ikigai may be to help build schools in Cambodia, play the violin solo at the Royal Festival Hall in London, or drive a racing car at the Indy 500.

While these are lofty ideals and require planning and setting goals, not all our Ikigai’s are so large and are more achievable. However, they would still require some level of planning and setting goals.

Some of you will have heard about SMART Goals and how the formula helps guide us when we are in the process of goal setting. Our Ikigai goals.

We all have different Ikigai and goals from each other; even in a family, each member will probably have a different Ikigai from the other.

In terms of our Ikigai and our careers, the same applies to our colleagues all having different goals, aspirations, or Ikigai.

Not everyone wants to be the CEO… Phew, that’s good if you are a CEO… a bit more job security.

Not everyone wants to play the violin solo at the Royal Festival Hall in London or drive a racing car at the Indy 500. Realistically, it may be playing in the local orchestra or being a mechanic on a local race team.

In a business sense, a company will have goals and objectives as set out in its business plan.

In most cases, the SMART Goals principles will have been applied when creating them.

A company can use SMART Goals to align individual employees’ goals and their Ikigai to the business plan/goals, thus encouraging employees to commit to higher levels of productivity.

A potential win/win for both the company and the employee if the company and personal goals can be aligned.

Whether you are setting goals for your Ikigai for personal or a professional application, using the SMART Goals process is an excellent option.

The acronym SMART has several slightly different variations, which can be used to provide a more comprehensive definition of goal setting

Below is an overview of the original SMART Goals concept as first introduced by George T. Doran in the November 1981 issue of Management Review.

Doran’s version was S—specific, M—measurable, A—achievable, R—realistic, and T—timed. Over the years these have been molded to suit other people’s agendas and be more broad in application.

S – Specific, significant, stretching

M – Measurable, meaningful, motivational

A – Achievable, acceptable, action-oriented, agreed upon, attainable

R – Realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented

T – Time-based, timely, tangible, trackable

SMART Goals

Specific

Using the Six W’s provides a well-defined description of the goal

Who:      Who is involved?
What:     What do I want to accomplish?
Where:    Identify a location.
When:     Establish a time frame.
Which:    Identify requirements and constraints.
Why:      Specific reasons, purpose, or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

Measurable

Lets you know if you are hitting the defined achievement or milestone by the dates set in the goal statement. Often these are referred to as key performance indicators.

Questions like how much, how many, and how long will indicate if the goal is measurable.

Achievable

Goals that are perceived as not being achievable will generally not be attempted. There will be no real commitment to goals that are too far out of reach.

Having a goal that is a bit of a stretch is healthy, as recent research suggests we tend to get motivated and respond to a challenge.

Realistic

As realistic is very similar to achievable, most definitions of SMART Goals these days refer to the R as relevant.

Realistic: a goal can be considered achievable. However, if a team has several projects on the go at the same time, it might therefore be deemed unrealistic to expect a team or an individual to undertake an additional goal or project with the current workload. Or there may be unrealistic costs associated with the execution of certain goals.

Relevant: Goals must tie in with the business plan and vision of a company; otherwise, a lot of activity will be futile and end up costing time and money, which could have been employed gainfully within the business.

Time-Based

Goals have a start date and a finish date; additionally, there may be milestones or events in between the start and finish dates that should also have a date attached.

Using SMART goals as your formula to mold your Ikigai into an actionable plan is an easy path to follow.

Steve Hudson