Why I Stopped Setting SMART Goals (And What I Do Instead)

When it comes to personal development, most roads lead back to SMART goals. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. It's presented as the gold standard of goal setting, the one method that serious, disciplined people use to get things done.

I tried it for years. And it consistently didn't work for me.

Not because I lacked discipline or didn't care about my goals. But because I am a human being with human emotions, human moods, human energy levels, and a human life that does not unfold on a neat, predictable schedule. Setting goals under the assumption that I will show up identically every single day, that life will cooperate with my timeline, that there is only one specific path to one specific outcome, felt restrictive, limiting, and honestly, like a recipe for feeling like a failure.

Computers and machines can operate the same way day after day. Humans are not meant to. And to create goals that expect otherwise is, in my opinion, to deny yourself the beauty of the actual human experience: knowing yourself, learning yourself, being present in the journey, staying open to growth and change, and living life rather than managing it.

This article is my case for a different approach. One that is broader, more flexible, process-based, and rooted in self-love and self-compassion. If you've been setting SMART goals and feeling like you keep failing, I want to offer you a reframe. You were never the problem. The structure was.

Why SMART Goals Don't Actually Work for Most Women

The appeal of SMART goals makes sense. They provide structure. They feel productive. And for certain personality types, in certain contexts, they genuinely work.

But for a significant number of women, they create more problems than they solve. Here's why.

They're rigid by design. Life is fluid and we are dynamic beings, evolving with every experience we have. SMART goals, with their fixed parameters, don't account for that. They don't leave room for new information you gain about yourself along the way, for a change in circumstances, for the organic growth that happens when you're actually living rather than executing a plan. If you start a goal and then learn something that changes how you want to approach it, SMART goals don't accommodate that. You either stay on the original path or you've "failed." That's not growth. That's rigidity.

They're not one size fits all. What works for one person doesn't work for another. Our individuality is one of the most beautiful things about us, and any system that presents itself as the only way to reach goals doesn't account for the rich diversity of human experience, personality, and lifestyle. Books and guides that preach SMART goals as the universal path to success do a disservice to everyone who has tried the system and found it genuinely doesn't fit.

They leave no room for adaptability. What happens when you make a SMART goal and then you get sick? Or have a family emergency? Or life just gets complicated in the way that life does? Most people abandon the goal entirely because the structure gives them no way to adapt. The all-or-nothing nature of SMART goals means that one missed day becomes a missed week becomes a full abandon. A more flexible approach would allow you to adjust, to find a new way forward, without treating a detour as a destination.

They promote a checklist mentality toward life. When success is defined by checking boxes, life becomes something to accomplish rather than something to experience. You stop being present in the journey because your entire focus is on the destination. You stop savoring the process because you're always racing toward the outcome. That's not how I want to live. And I don't think it's how most women genuinely want to live either.

They turn some people into rule breakers. Some people thrive under structure and rigidity. Others, and I am firmly in this category, feel suffocated by it. Any time I put myself in a rigid box, saying I must do A, B, and C to get to X, Y, and Z, I would feel like the rules were running my life rather than me. I would break the limitations and then feel like a failure for doing so. What I've come to understand is that wasn't failure at all. It was my inner desire to be the one running my own life. SMART goals consistently turned my want-tos into have-tos. I'd lose touch with why I set the goal in the first place and just feel restricted by the rules I'd created to get there.

They're not sustainable. For two reasons. First, they're too rigid for real life, so people break them and then feel they've failed and give up completely. Second, they're end-goal focused, which means once the goal is reached, people usually revert to where they started because the goal was never integrated into their actual life. Sustainable growth is not about reaching an endpoint. It's about cultivating lasting change. And that requires a different kind of approach entirely.

A More Human Approach: Broader, Process-Based Goals

Instead of boxing ourselves into predefined criteria, I want to propose something different. Broader goals. Process-based goals. Goals that acknowledge the fluidity of life, honor the complexity of being human, and allow for the kind of authentic, sustainable growth that actually sticks.

The core idea is simple. Rather than setting a specific, measurable target with a fixed timeline and a single prescribed path, you set a broader intention and focus on the process of moving toward it. The goal grows and changes as you do. You stay present in the journey instead of constantly racing toward an outcome.

Let me give you a concrete example.

A SMART goal might look like this: "I want to lose 10 pounds in 4 weeks. I will do that by eating this specific meal at this specific time every day and exercising for exactly this long every morning."

A broader goal looks like this: "I want to feel healthy and fit. I will make food and movement choices that support that."

With the SMART goal, there is one way and one way only. If that way isn't followed precisely, it's a failure. With the broader goal, there are countless ways to move forward. Every meal choice, every moment of deciding whether to take the stairs or the elevator, every evening where you choose sleep over scrolling, is an opportunity to move toward your goal. It becomes a lifestyle rather than a checklist. It becomes integrated into your life rather than imposed on top of it.

Why Process-Based Goals Change Everything

The most important shift in process-based goal setting is this: you stop measuring success by whether you arrived and start measuring it by whether you showed up.

With outcome-based goals, the entire journey is colored by whether you're "there" yet. You're a failure until you arrive. Every setback is evidence that you're falling behind. There's very little joy in the process because all the reward is reserved for the endpoint.

With process-based goals, every step forward is a win. You are succeeding every single time you make a choice that moves you toward your intention, however small. And when you have a hard day or a setback, it's not a failure — it's information. Something to learn from, adjust to, and continue from.

A good example: imagine your goal is to read more. A SMART goal version might be "I will read one book per month." With that goal, you're not really present when you're reading. You're tracking pages, calculating pace, making sure you'll hit your number. You're not savoring the experience or noticing how reading is changing you. You're just completing a task.

A process-based goal would be "I will make reading a more prominent part of my daily life." With that intention, you notice how you feel when you read before bed versus in the morning. You discover which types of books move you and which ones don't. You become a companion in your own reading experience rather than a manager of your book count. And you will very likely read at least as many books, probably more, because the goal is enjoyable rather than obligatory.

This is the shift. From managing your life to actually living it.

The Connection Between Process-Based Goals and Self-Love

This is where I want to make something explicit that I believe deeply as a life coach.

SMART goals are often rooted in the implicit belief that who you are right now is not enough. That you need to achieve, accomplish, and improve your way to acceptability. That rest is laziness. That missing a day is failure. That you should be able to show up identically every single day regardless of what your body, your heart, or your life is telling you.

That is not self-love. That is self-criticism wearing the costume of productivity.

Broader, process-based goals are rooted in the opposite belief. That you are a full, complex, worthy human being who deserves goals that honor your humanity rather than deny it. That checking in with yourself matters. That adapting when you need to is wisdom, not weakness. That the way you pursue your goals should feel like a choice you're making for yourself, not a sentence you're serving.

When your goal-setting process is grounded in self-love and self-compassion, everything changes. You're not building the life you think you should have. You're building the life you genuinely want. And that difference is everything. As we explored in why you need a self-love coach, trying to build a meaningful life from a foundation of self-criticism is like moving forward with the brakes on. Process-based goals take the brakes off.

The Real Benefits of a Broader, More Flexible Approach

It's actually sustainable. Goals that flex with your life become part of your lifestyle. They don't shatter when life gets complicated. They adapt. And adaptation, not perfection, is what produces lasting change.

It keeps you in the driver's seat. With SMART goals, the goal essentially runs you. With broader goals, you remain the co-creator of your experience. You check in with yourself regularly to see if the goal still serves you, if it still aligns with who you are and what you want, and you adjust accordingly. That ongoing relationship with your own goals is itself a powerful practice of self-awareness and authentic living.

It leaves room for life. When something exciting or spontaneous presents itself, a broader goal allows you to say yes to life and return to your goal tomorrow, without guilt. I don't believe you should ever feel guilty for choosing to enjoy your life. A goal that makes you feel guilty for living is not a goal in service of you. It's a goal in service of productivity culture.

It makes setbacks survivable. With SMART goals, a setback is a failure. With broader goals, a setback is a natural contour of the journey. Nobody does anything perfectly all the time. When you accept that, setbacks become information rather than indictments. You learn, you adjust, you keep moving. Resilience is built not by never falling but by getting up with curiosity rather than self-judgment.

It celebrates the small wins. Every time you make a choice that moves you toward your broader intention, you win. Not just on the day you hit a milestone. Every single day you show up, in whatever way you're able to show up. That positive feedback loop builds real momentum and real motivation — the intrinsic kind, that comes from genuine desire rather than fear of failing.

It honors your humanity. You are not a machine. You have different energy levels on different days. You have emotions that affect your capacity. You have a life that sometimes disrupts your plans. A goal-setting approach that acknowledges and accommodates all of that is not a soft approach. It is the most realistic and sustainable approach available to you.

What This Looks Like in Practice: Real Examples

Here's how the same goal looks through a SMART lens versus a broader, process-based lens:

Health and fitness: SMART: Lose 10 pounds in 4 weeks by following a strict meal plan and exercising for exactly one hour at 6am every day. Broader: Embrace a healthier lifestyle by making food and movement choices that support how I want to feel. Focus on overall wellbeing rather than a specific number on a specific timeline.

Financial wellbeing: SMART: Save exactly $5,000 in 3 months by cutting all non-essential spending. Broader: Cultivate a healthier relationship with money by consistently saving a portion of my income and bringing more awareness to how and why I spend.

Physical fitness: SMART: Complete a 10k in under 50 minutes within 8 weeks by following a structured daily training program. Broader: Enhance my overall fitness and wellbeing by engaging regularly in physical activity I actually enjoy, focusing on how I feel rather than a specific time-bound achievement.

Creative expression: SMART: Write 1,000 words every day and publish a 200-page book in 6 months. Broader: Write more often. Let the creative process unfold naturally, focusing on the joy of expression rather than a specific word count or deadline.

Learning: SMART: Achieve conversational fluency in a new language in 3 months by dedicating 30 minutes daily to an app. Broader: Immerse yourself in the joy of a new language and culture. Try different approaches — TV shows, podcasts, travel, teachers — and let the learning unfold organically rather than racing toward a fluency deadline.

My Own Story With This Approach Moving Away From SMART Goals

I used to believe SMART goals were the only way. I read the books. I attended the workshops. I set the specific, measurable, time-bound goals. And I consistently felt like a failure.

Over time, through my own journey of self-love and self-discovery, I found a different way. Broader goals. Process-based goals. Goals that allowed me to feel okay about being human, okay about choosing spontaneity and life over a rigid plan, okay about setbacks, and okay about not living my life as a series of boxes to check.

With this approach I have accomplished a great deal. But perhaps more importantly, I have also become so much happier, calmer, more present, and more full of genuine self-compassion. Those things matter as much as accomplishments. With SMART goals the richness of living gets lost in the race to arrive somewhere. With process-based goals, you get to actually be here.

One specific example. When I began this blog, I set a goal to write one article per week. I did that for about 25 weeks and then found myself putting it off, dreading it. I checked in with myself and realized that after covering the topics that genuinely energized me, forcing one article per week meant writing without passion. And writing without passion is just checking off a box.

So I adjusted the goal. Now my goal is to pay attention throughout the week to thoughts and reflections that genuinely excite me, and when passion grows around an idea, to turn it into an article. I don't aim for the outcome. I aim for the process: staying connected to ideas I care about and finding time to write when something genuinely moves me.

The result is the same — a growing blog — but the experience is completely different. It feels like a want-to rather than a have-to. And that difference is everything.

If I had stuck rigidly with my original goal, I would have had two options: force myself to write without passion and produce work that didn't reflect my best thinking, or "fail" and stop entirely. The flexibility to check in, adjust, and recommit in a new way is what allowed me to keep going. That's what process-based goals make possible.

A Note on Setbacks

With SMART goals, a setback is a failure. Full stop. You didn't do the specific thing in the specific way at the specific time, and so it's done.

With a broader approach, setbacks are simply part of the journey. Nobody does anything perfectly all the time. We're human. Life is unpredictable. The question is not whether setbacks will happen but how you relate to them when they do.

In this approach, a setback is an invitation to reflect. What happened? What can I learn? How can I adjust and continue? Instead of asking "why did this happen to me?" and stepping into powerlessness, you ask "what did this come to teach me and how can I move forward?" That shift from victim to empowered thinking is not just about goal-setting. It's about the fundamental relationship you have with your own life.

Resilience is built not by never falling but by developing the capacity to get up with curiosity rather than self-judgment. Every time you navigate a setback and find your way forward, you build evidence that you can handle difficulty without being destroyed by it. That evidence compounds over time into genuine confidence and genuine strength.

Is This Approach Right for You?

If you've read this far and it resonates, this approach is probably a good fit for you. It tends to work especially well for women who feel suffocated by rigid structure, who have a history of setting goals and feeling like failures, who want their goals to feel like a genuine expression of who they are rather than a performance of discipline, and who want to actually enjoy the process of growing and changing rather than just enduring it until they arrive somewhere.

If SMART goals have genuinely worked well for you, that's completely valid. There is no one right way. My purpose in writing this is not to tell you that SMART goals are wrong for everyone. It's to offer an alternative for those of you for whom they haven't worked, and to reframe what you might have been calling failure as simply a misalignment between the method and the person.

You were never the problem. The structure was.

As we explored in living from the inside out, when your choices come from genuine internal alignment rather than externally imposed rules, everything about the pursuit feels different. Goal-setting is no exception.

Ready to Set Goals That Actually Fit Who You Are?

If you've spent years feeling like you've been failing at your goals, I want you to hear this clearly: you were never the problem. The structure was. Humans are not checklists. We are dynamic, complex, feeling beings whose lives rarely unfold in neat, measurable boxes.

This is exactly the work we do together in life coaching. My approach is rooted in self-love and authenticity, which means we get clear on what you truly want underneath all the shoulds, and then we build a way forward that grows and flexes with you rather than breaking under the weight of real life.

If you're ready to set goals that actually fit who you are, I'd love to talk. Book a free consultation call here. No pressure, just an honest conversation about where you are and what you want next. Or explore my 1:1 coaching packages here.

And if this resonated, these articles might too:

Stop Relying on Willpower — Use Wantpower Instead

Why Self-Love Is Important and Five Practical Tips to Love Yourself More

Finding Success: What Is It Really

Goals should feel like a life you're choosing, not a sentence you're serving.