50 SMART Goals Examples for Health, Work, Money and More
SMART goals examples show what a goal looks like once it's Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound: "get fit" becomes "walk 8,000 steps a day, five days a week, for eight weeks." Below are 50 SMART goals examples across health, career, work performance, personal growth, money, relationships, study, business and wellbeing, each shown as the vague version and the SMART rewrite, plus one example broken down letter by letter and a four-step way to adapt any of them to your own life.
When you've picked one, write it out properly with our SMART goals template or the free SMART goal worksheet builder. Coaches who want goals like these to live in their clients' app can have Coachful's team set it up in their account for free.
One SMART goal example, broken down
Start with how the five letters fit together in a single goal, then skim the categories for the one you need.
Vague goal: Save money.
SMART goal: Save $3,000 for an emergency fund by December 31 by automatically transferring $250 on each payday, because I want a cushion if my car breaks down again.
| Letter | Part of the goal | Why it passes |
|---|---|---|
| Specific | An emergency fund | Names what the money is for, not just "savings" |
| Measurable | $3,000 | You can check the balance any day |
| Achievable | $250 per payday, automated | Fits the budget and removes willpower from the plan |
| Relevant | A cushion after last year's car repair | A reason the person actually feels |
| Time-bound | By December 31 | A fixed date with a built-in pace |
Notice the weekly action ("$250 on each payday") is inside the goal. The strongest examples below all include one: it's what you'll actually do on a Tuesday.
SMART goals examples for health and fitness
| Vague goal | SMART goal |
|---|---|
| 1. Get in shape | Walk 8,000 steps a day, five days a week, for the next eight weeks, tracked on my phone, so I'm ready for the May hike. |
| 2. Lose weight | Lose 10 pounds by June 30 by cooking dinner at home five nights a week and skipping weekday alcohol, weighing in every Monday. |
| 3. Run more | Run the city 10K on October 12 in under 60 minutes, following a 12-week plan with three runs a week. |
| 4. Eat healthier | Eat three servings of vegetables a day, five days a week, for 30 days, logged each evening. |
| 5. Sleep better | Be in bed by 10:30pm with my phone outside the bedroom on at least five nights a week for four weeks. |
| 6. Drink more water | Drink two liters of water a day for 21 days, refilling a marked bottle at 10am and 2pm. |
SMART goals examples for your career
| Vague goal | SMART goal |
|---|---|
| 7. Get promoted | Be promoted to senior analyst at the March review by leading two client projects and asking my manager for feedback once a month from now on. |
| 8. Find a new job | Get three interviews for product marketing roles by May 1 by applying to five roles and asking for two referrals every week. |
| 9. Network more | Have one coffee or video call a week with someone in my target industry for the next 10 weeks. |
| 10. Learn a new skill | Finish an introductory SQL course and build one dashboard from real work data by August 31, studying three hours a week. |
| 11. Get better at presenting | Present at four team meetings by the end of Q3 and ask one colleague for written feedback after each. |
| 12. Get a raise | Bring my manager a one-page case for a 7% raise, with three measurable results from this year, to my review on November 15. |
Career goals often need a plan your manager can see. An individual development plan is the format most workplaces use for that.
SMART goals examples for work performance
These suit performance reviews and objectives you agree with a manager.
| Vague goal | SMART goal |
|---|---|
| 13. Answer emails faster | Reply to every customer email within one business day for the next quarter, measured by the weekly helpdesk report. |
| 14. Be more organized | Write tomorrow's top three tasks before leaving work, every workday for four weeks. |
| 15. Improve team communication | Run a 15-minute Monday stand-up for my team of six every week this quarter and share written notes the same day. |
| 16. Make fewer mistakes | Cut invoice errors from 12 a month to fewer than 4 by June 30 by adding a two-step check to every invoice over $1,000. |
| 17. Be a better manager | Hold a 30-minute one-to-one with each of my five direct reports every two weeks for three months, using the same five questions. |
SMART goals examples for personal development
| Vague goal | SMART goal |
|---|---|
| 18. Read more | Read 12 books this year, one a month, by reading 20 pages before bed on weeknights. |
| 19. Learn Spanish | Hold a 10-minute conversation in Spanish with my tutor by December 1, practising 20 minutes a day and taking one lesson a week. |
| 20. Start journaling | Write three lines in my journal every evening for 30 days, right after brushing my teeth. |
| 21. Be more confident | Speak up at least once in every team meeting for six weeks and note one thing that went well afterwards. |
| 22. Use my phone less | Keep weekday screen time under two hours a day for four weeks, checked every Sunday. |
| 23. Meditate | Meditate for 10 minutes every morning before coffee for 30 days, tracked as a daily habit. |
SMART goals examples for money
| Vague goal | SMART goal |
|---|---|
| 24. Save money | Save $3,000 for an emergency fund by December 31 with an automatic $250 transfer on each payday. |
| 25. Pay off debt | Pay off a $4,200 credit card balance within 11 months by paying $400 a month and putting no new charges on the card. |
| 26. Spend less | Cut takeout spending from about $300 to $150 a month for three months, checked every Sunday. |
| 27. Make a budget | Record every expense for 60 days and review the totals by category every Sunday night. |
| 28. Start investing | Open a retirement account this month and contribute 5% of every paycheck from next month. |
SMART goals examples for relationships and family
| Vague goal | SMART goal |
|---|---|
| 29. Spend more time with family | Have a phone-free family dinner four nights a week for the next two months. |
| 30. Be a better partner | Plan one date night a month for six months, taking turns choosing what we do. |
| 31. Keep in touch with friends | Call or message one close friend every Sunday for 12 weeks. |
| 32. Make new friends | Join one local club or class by the end of this month and go to at least six sessions by the end of the quarter. |
| 33. Argue less | Take a 10-minute pause before replying in any heated disagreement for 30 days, and note each time I managed it. |
SMART goals examples for students
| Vague goal | SMART goal |
|---|---|
| 34. Get better grades | Raise my statistics grade from a C to a B by the final exam by doing every practice set and going to office hours once a week. |
| 35. Study more | Study in two 45-minute blocks, five days a week, in the library, for the rest of the semester. |
| 36. Finish my thesis | Write 500 words every weekday until I have a 15,000-word first draft by March 15. |
| 37. Apply to grad school | Submit applications to five programs by December 1, finishing one personal statement draft every two weeks. |
| 38. Stop procrastinating | Start every assignment within 48 hours of getting it for the rest of the term, logged in my planner. |
SMART goals examples for business owners and coaches
| Vague goal | SMART goal |
|---|---|
| 39. Get more clients | Sign five new 1:1 coaching clients by November 30 by booking three discovery calls a week from referrals and my email list. |
| 40. Grow my email list | Grow my list from 300 to 1,000 subscribers by June 30 with one free guide and two posts a week that promote it. |
| 41. Post more on social media | Publish three LinkedIn posts a week for 12 weeks and record profile views every Friday. |
| 42. Raise my prices | Offer my package at the new rate to every new client from March 1, after updating my sales page and proposal in February. |
| 43. Launch a group program | Enroll 12 people in my first group program by September 15 with a two-week launch to my list and three free live sessions. |
| 44. Keep more clients | Have 70% of current clients renew by the end of the quarter by holding a progress review with each one in week 10. |
SMART goals examples for stress and wellbeing
| Vague goal | SMART goal |
|---|---|
| 45. Reduce stress | Take a 10-minute walk outside after lunch every workday for four weeks. |
| 46. Better work-life balance | Stop work by 6pm on four of five weekdays for six weeks and turn off work notifications after 7pm. |
| 47. Be kinder to myself | Write down one thing I did well every evening for 21 days. |
| 48. Take more breaks | Step away from my desk for five minutes every 90 minutes during the workday for two weeks, using a timer. |
| 49. Get outside more | Spend at least two hours outdoors every weekend for the next two months. |
| 50. Be more creative | Finish one small painting a week for eight weeks, keeping Sunday afternoons free for it. |
Short-term and long-term SMART goal examples
Most examples above run 4 to 12 weeks, which is the sweet spot for a first goal: long enough to see change, short enough to stay motivated. Long-term goals work better when you split them. "Run a marathon in 18 months" is a fine long-term goal, but it needs a short-term goal underneath it, such as "run a 10K in under 60 minutes by October 12." Goal-setting researchers Edwin Locke and Gary Latham report in their 2002 review that adding near-term goals to a distant one helped people on new, complex tasks. For more short-term ideas, see our ideas for short-term goals.
Examples that look SMART but aren't
- "Lose 20 pounds by Friday." Specific, measurable and time-bound, and neither achievable nor safe. Achievable is the letter that protects you from yourself.
- "Post on LinkedIn every day this year." Measurable, but not relevant unless you know what the posts are for. Add the result: "so that I book two discovery calls a month from LinkedIn by June."
- "Be happier by December." Time-bound, but not measurable. Pick the behaviors that make you happier and measure those instead.
How to turn an example into your own SMART goal
- Pick the example closest to what you want and copy it.
- Change the numbers to your starting point. If you walk 3,000 steps a day now, 8,000 is a big jump; 5,000 might be the right first goal.
- Rewrite the reason in your own words. "So I'm ready for the May hike" only works if there's a hike.
- Add one weekly action and a weekly check. A 2016 meta-analysis of 138 studies found that monitoring progress toward a goal promoted reaching it, with larger effects when progress was physically recorded or reported to someone else.
Using SMART goals examples with coaching clients in Coachful
Coaches use example lists like this one in the first or second session, when a client knows roughly what they want but can't yet say it in a sentence. The client picks two or three examples, adapts them, and you help sharpen the best one. Here's what happens next in Coachful, all included in your membership.
The goal goes into the client's app
Create the goal from the client's page with New goal, or let the client add it themselves. Each goal has a target date, progress from 0 to 100 shown as a ring with the days left, and a milestone path for checkpoints. A client can hold several goals at once and feature one on their home screen.
Programs can hand clients a goal to make their own
A program can create a goal that asks the client to word it themselves, with a prompt to Make this goal your own. That's useful for a group program where everyone works toward the same outcome in their own words.
Weekly actions become tasks and habits
The weekly action in each example becomes a habit with a reminder, or a task in the client's Daily Focus. On the goal page, Daily momentum shows the tasks and habits linked to that goal and how many are done today.
The weekly check is built in
Each goal has a weekly reflection that asks whether the client is on track, how far along they are, what went well, the biggest obstacle and what they'll do differently. You read the answers on their record and can reply.
Ready-made programs and worksheets
Tools > Explore includes a SMART goal worksheet, a Goal ladder and an Action plan you can make your own, and Coachful has more than 40 program templates and 48 course templates if you want a goal program ready to film.
Or let our team build it
Coachful's team will build a goal-setting worksheet, a 12-week goal program or the weekly check-ins in your account for free, on every plan. Ask from Create > We'll build it for you; the team usually replies within about 24 hours. Read what the white-glove service includes, our guide to coaching goal setting, and how goals and habits fit in Coachful's coaching tracker.
Frequently asked questions
What are 5 examples of SMART goals?
Walk 8,000 steps a day, five days a week, for eight weeks. Read 12 books this year by reading 20 pages before bed on weeknights. Save $3,000 for an emergency fund by December 31 with an automatic transfer each payday. Get three interviews for product roles by May 1 by applying to five roles a week. Write three lines in a journal every evening for 30 days.
What is a good SMART goal for work?
One tied to a result your manager cares about, with a weekly action. For example: "Reply to every customer email within one business day for the next quarter, measured by the weekly helpdesk report," or "Cut invoice errors from 12 a month to fewer than 4 by June 30 by adding a two-step check."
What are SMART goals examples for students?
"Raise my statistics grade from a C to a B by the final exam by doing every practice set and going to office hours weekly," "Study in two 45-minute blocks, five days a week, for the rest of the semester," and "Submit five grad school applications by December 1."
What is an example of a personal SMART goal?
"Hold a 10-minute conversation in Spanish by December 1 by practising 20 minutes a day and taking one lesson a week." It's specific, you can test it, the plan fits a normal week, the reason is personal and there's a date.
What is a short-term SMART goal example?
"Meditate for 10 minutes every morning before coffee for 30 days" or "Take a 10-minute walk after lunch every workday for four weeks." Short-term SMART goals usually run 2 to 12 weeks and focus on a behavior you can repeat.
How many SMART goals should I have at once?
One to three. Each needs a weekly action and a weekly check, and more than three of those competes for the same hours. Choose one goal per life area at most, and add the next one once the first becomes a habit.
Will Coachful set up SMART goals for my coaching clients?
Coachful's white-glove service is free on every plan. Ask from Create > We'll build it for you and the team will build a goal-setting worksheet, program or weekly check-in in your account, usually within about 24 hours, so your clients can start working on their goals in the app.
