From Intention to Action: How SMART and PACT Goals Work Together

Last week, I suggested that we consider what goals we would like to set for 2026, what progress we want to make, and what problems we would like to solve. We may not perfect goal setting the first time. Or the second time, or the 112th time. But we still should endeavor to do it.

This week, we’re going to walk through 2 tools to make those goals actually happen.  

As a productivity coach and consultant, let me restate why I recommend Goal Setting instead of New Years Resolutions:

• Goals are set by us and not by our observations of or pressure from others, and are more likely to be something we really want.

• Goal setting, especially PACT goals, helps us create new habits that stick.

• Goal setting helps us get specific, helps us be flexible, helps us to identify challenges ahead of time and how to deal with them.

Setting goals helps us formulate our plans for the days and months to come.  And consider this, making a plan makes success more likely. As both Ben Franklin and Winston Churchill are credited with saying, “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail.”

I will share two tools today, the first is the SMART Method (George T. Doran) for Goal Setting.  

The SMART Method tells us that goals need to be:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Attainable / Achieveable

• Relevant; and

• Timely

Make goals SPECIFIC. 

Goal setting is NOT choosing one word for our intention for the year, even though I have a few in mind, like “Rise” or “Forward.”  A SMART goal is specific, about what you want and don’t want in your day or week or life. 

Perhaps your goal is to “make the world a better place!” Admirable, to be sure, but… How will it be better? And how will you do it? And Where? And When? And Who will be affected? Make your goal specific and answer the Who/What/Where/When/ Why questions.

A Specific goal might be: “I will help the children, grades 4-6, of my local community by creating a 6 week life-skills class to be offered this summer at our local library.”

Make goals MEASURABLE.

A goal has to be measurable, or how will we know we have met it?  We can’t improve on something unless we measure it.  For example, my social media pages offer metrics for success – how many people opened an email, liked my FB page, listened to my podcast, etc. and those metrics help me better plan my actions from week to week.

For a personal example, we all know that if our goal is to lose weight, the first thing we do is weigh in and take some measurements.  Consider, too – measurements towards that weight loss goal may be how many steps I’m taking or how much water I’m drinking daily.

Make your goal measurable, figure out exactly what you want to measure, and determine how you will know you’re done!  And more on Measurable in PACT Goals!

Make goals ACHIEVABLE.

Make sure that the goal you set out to achieve is actually doable.  I can change the world, it’s true.  However… I probably can’t grow a foot taller, join a professional sports team or run a marathon in the next week. We want to set goals that are achievable, but also stretch us just a bit! 

Let’s take a moment here to remember:  we can only make goals for ourselves; and we cannot force goals on others. Our goals may be in conjunction with another person’s goal, like a business plan with a business partner, or a healthy living plan for the whole family.

“Achievable” requires action.  We can’t just sit there and expect things to happen. Create an action plan to achieve your goals. Break down your goals to make them achievable.  Big goals are a series of small goals, or, broken down even further, a series of tasks or steps. Set a big goal, then break it into bite-size actionable steps.

To make our goal “Achievable”, we need to consider the potential pitfalls. Let’s say your goal is “I'm going to go to the gym every day.”  Great. That sounds achievable. And… Have you joined a gym? Is there one close to you? Do you know the open hours of the gym? How are you going to fit that into your schedule? The people around you that already rely on you, how are you going to work with that? So they can understand what you're trying to do and still be supported, or be supportive. All of those things matter. And navigating those potential problems as we plan makes those goals likely to actually be achievable.

I want to say a few words here about support to achieve our goals. Consider these:

• Find external accountability, like hiring web developers or a personal trainer.

• Share your goals and plans with supportive people to remind us of the goal and the “why”.

• Be realistic and anticipate that there will be obstacles, and have plans in place to work around those.

Make goals RELEVANT.  

I heard in a webinar last week that when we set goals that we want to complete, we should be seeking a feeling and not just an outcome.  Yes, and also No.  Feelings are unreliable and difficult to measure. But they matter, wow, do they matter.

In coaching, we ask, what makes this important NOW?  State meaningful goals, and you will be more likely to meet them. This step asks us to ask “Why?”  Why dedicate time, energy and resources to a goal unless it is relevant? Why are we setting this goal?  And then, we need to repeat our WHY all the time and everywhere!

More on Relevant in PACT Goals!

Make goals TIMELY.

We set goals to create urgency through a deadline and structure. Set a time frame for your goals.  A SMART Goal needs to be timely, time specific.  “I will achieve xyz goal by March 1st” or “next Tuesday.”

Every goal needs a deadline, or else it's just a wish.  Set a deadline, and then make mid-goal benchmarks to check your progress.  Make the goal time-frame long enough but not too long!

And now, Shift with me here.

SMART Goal setting is a powerful tool for an outcome focused process.  In addition, sometimes we need regular support as scaffolding to help us accomplish the SMART goals. PACT Goals are process oriented. They are the daily or regular steps we take towards a goal. 

PACT stands for

• Purposeful, 

• Action-oriented, 

• Continuous and

• Trackable.

Some goals are once and done, like a SMART goal.  PACT Goals support progress over perfection, encourage practice and repetition, and help us to meet expectations. PACT goals support progress because motivation is unpredictable. Waiting for a feeling is unpredictable. If we wait until we feel like doing something, when that feeling has NEVER happened before, we will never do it. 

Progress goals might be:

• Make progress towards coaching certification by recording one client coaching session a week for an upcoming deadline.

• Attend 12 live music / independent artist concerts in 2026 (one a month).

• Read at least 12 non-fiction books in 2026.

• Walk 30 minutes a day every day, working up to a pace of xxx miles in that time, or xxx heart rate, etc.

And then we have the blend. For example, here’s a SMART goal:

“I will publish new blog articles and podcast content every week this quarter until I reach 550 posts by April 1.” This is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and has a time frame attached.

Now, how will I accomplish this goal? This is NOT a once-and-done goal or event since it will take weekly consistent effort to accomplish.

To make the goals and the work happen, from day to day, we need to bring the waypoints closer in.  We need manageable portions to bite off on a daily or weekly basis in addition to that one big goal we will accomplish at the end of a predetermined amount of time. PACT Goals can help.

Often, the journey is the point. Sometimes we need to set PACT goals to give us the support to meet our SMART goals. And sometimes we need to use PACT goals to create better habits for forever.

Let’s break this down! Purpose. Actions. Continuous and Trackable. I like the idea of continuous movement towards our goals. Let’s use my Publication Goal above as an example.

The question of “Purpose” is important for setting goals. We want to know that we are achieving what we want to achieve. That just makes sense. We want to know our purpose and we want to be purposeful (think “intentional”). And once we figure out what we are awesome at and what we are meant to do in life, as in what we want to do intentionally with our time in small and large pieces, then that’s our purpose.

When we set purposeful goals, we want to know that what we’re seeking to achieve aligns with who we are, what we want in life, etc.. And publishing high quality and supportive content for my community definitely aligns with my professional goals.

And since success towards my publishing goal is not something I can just knock out in a day or a week, I need to be intentional on how I spend my time. I need to PURPOSEFUL in my actions.

On to Action! Action, because we’re talking about goal setting here, right? We’re talking about making progress. We’re talking about moving forward. All of those words are active words.

Progress requires action. What are the actions that we need to take to move us towards our PACT goals? Working towards the publication goal, my actions have included in the last week spending 30 minutes each day on the project:

• Review my voice memos on my phone, rename them and send them as an attachment to my email.

• Upload to the transcription service that I use and have all the unpublished memos transcribed.

• Match up all the voice memos / transcriptions with my list of published articles and podcast topics, and delete any duplicates.

• Add the unpublished topics to my editorial content calendar.

• And now that I know what I want to write about and publish, I will carve out an hour on the calendar 3 – 4 days a week for writing / editing.

And, since PACT goals need to be trackable, every one of those steps I listed above is trackable with metrics. I went from 30 voice memos down to 10. I went from 45 transcriptions down to 11. I increased, after deleting many duplicate topics, from 20 to 35 topics on my editorial calendar. And now I can track “writing minutes” weekly as progress towards the goal. Action.

Next up, and forever – Continuous.

Purpose and Actions are easy to see, but I think what sets PACT goals apart are the Continuous and Trackable aspects.

Let’s talk about continuous and trackable. Using as an example, my goal of publication by a certain date.  I’ve set my intentions, I have determined my actions. Now I need to do them! What would continuous progress towards my goal look like? I can determine that, and then make progress towards that goal. And beyond, of course, because I have a waypoint, a milestone in mind, but I certainly won’t stop writing after the upcoming deadline.

I need to take action every day or multiple times a week. Continuous might not mean every minute of every day, but it certainly will mean consistent, continuous progress towards the goal.

Perhaps a wellness goal is a good example, too – 30 minutes of cardio 5 times a week is purposeful, continuous and trackable action, and a habit that will help you for life. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes the journey is the point.

Finally, let’s talk “Trackable”.

How do we make progress happen? How do we measure progress and not just “I’m feeling better about the process” or “I am less stressed with writing”, or “I am having more fun”.

“Progress” is sometimes difficult to quantify. But when we determine our purpose and actions, and the interval which makes them continuous, we can track progress. In my example, I can track articles published, words written, minutes or hours worth of writing or editing, engagement with my readers by number of likes or shares, etc. These are trackable items. Which also means, I can track improvements from week to week by paying attention to trends in the tracking.

How far have you come? What have you accomplished so far? Reviewing your tracking, what can you do to improve the process?

In addition to catching up on my writing process, which is what my actions in the past week were about, I can also track my progress moving forward. I have re-set my content process and will continue with these new strategies for a few weeks. And then I can look and see if my output has improved over that time. If it has – yeah! If it has not, I probably need to review and adjust my strategies.

SMART and PACT goals are two tools we can use to set and achieve better goals.

We can set outcome oriented goals with SMART goals, we can use PACT goals with SMART goals, as the support to accomplish our SMART goals, and we can set PACT goals and focus on the process and not just the end product.

I hope you found this helpful. If you would like to comment, please share with me on social media or drop me an email at colleen@peaceofmindpo.com, or drop me a DM on one of my social media platforms. I can’t wait to hear about how SMART and PACT goals helped you move forward.