04/23/2026
goodbye SMART goals…Hello! DREAM Goals
Why D.R.E.A.M. Goals? Most people who have studied personal growth have heard of S.M.A.R.T. goals. Like many of you, it was one of the goal-setting methods I first learned. The acronym first appeared in the November 1981, issue of Management Review, in an article titled, "There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives," written by George T. Doran. It was created to help management develop goals with employees for more productive results in the workplace. The original S.M.A.R.T. acronym stood for Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-related.
Since then, people have changed the acronym for individual use and adapted it for their own purposes. Various sources that used the acronym also changed the meaning of one or more of the letters. Typically, the "S" for "Specific" stayed the same, but I found changes to all the other letters. As a result, they changed the method.
Changes I found included the "M" to represent Motivational instead of Measurable. The "A" changed to mean Achievable, Accountable, Attainable, Aligned, and Action-oriented. The "R" changed to Relevant or Related. And the "T" changed to Time specific, which is at least close to the original, but I also found it changed to Trackable in another source.
All these different versions and explanations only created redundancy and a lack of clarity in the method. While most of the changes were only slightly different, the various versions could create different plans and outcomes, for the same goal.
Also, a big problem for me was/is that I didn't like the terms Realistic, Relevant, or Achievable. Those terms can be very subjective and can be limiting beliefs. I understand wanting to make Realistic goals for people in an organization, as you don’t want to set people up for failure. However, applying it to an individual's goal can be even more subjective and limiting.
My goal is to teach people a complete method or system on how to set and achieve goals. I want people to have an I Can! belief in themselves, and plan for and achieve big goals as well as small ones. And I will not teach a limiting goal-setting method that says, "Hey, wait, is that goal Realistic or Attainable?" which suggests you should limit yourself and set a lesser or smaller goal. No one should limit or change your goals, and a goal setting method that inherently does that is not the best method.
If Christopher Columbus, Madame Curie, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Oprah, Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk bothered to follow a method insisting on “Realistic" and "Achievable" goals, our World would be a significantly less advanced and less wonderful place.
A change was needed, so I took the best, most effective, and proven techniques from various goal setting and goal achievement processes and created a new system, the D.R.E.A.M. Method. Get it Now! Can read more at icandream.net.
Why D.R.
