Research by Gail Matthews at Dominican University has proven strategies for effective goal achievement must be actionable.

This goes beyond writing goals down. There must be action steps, the sharing of goals and some personal accountability process for goal achievement.

Yours

Remember as a child when your parents demanded you achieve certain things like good grades, good discipline to even keeping your room clean?

Do you also remember feeling a little to a lot of resentment?

Having those feelings was quite natural. When we embrace the Theory of Self Determination as developed by Deci and Ryan, we understand this intrinsic motivation of choice.

When we have choice through autonomy, we are more likely to own the decision we are making. Choice in goal setting is about truly owning the goal as our own. 

Aligned

Within the pre-existing SMART, the A stood for achievable. Today we know that when we align our actions to our purpose, our plan, and our passion, achievement is far easier.

By adding WAY before SMART goals and replacing Aligned to Achievable, we now have a goal setting and goal achievement criteria that has evolved with current research and works with intrinsic motivation.