SMART Goal Setting Examples: 37 Templates Across 6 Categories

How to Use These SMART Goal Setting Examples

SMART Goal: A goal that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Every example below follows this structure — giving you a concrete model to adapt rather than starting from a blank page.

The examples below are organised into six categories. Each can be adapted by changing the metric, time frame, or team context. The goal is not to copy them verbatim, but to use the structure as a thinking scaffold that ensures your own goals meet every SMART criterion before they are communicated to your team.

What Makes a SMART Goal Fail in Practice?

Even well-structured goals underperform when:

The baseline is missing — “Increase sales by 15%” requires knowing the starting point. Document it at goal-setting time.
The measure is ambiguous — “Improve customer satisfaction” is not measurable without specifying the metric (NPS, CSAT score, complaint volume).
No mid-point review — Goals set and reviewed only at the end lose 80% of their motivational and corrective value. Build in check-ins at 25%, 50%, and 75% of the time period.
Achievable but not challenging — Research by Locke and Latham shows that difficult goals produce significantly higher performance than easy ones, provided the person accepts them as legitimate. Aim for stretch, not comfortable.

Related Goal Setting Resources

The following section contains our 37 SMART goal setting examples across six categories.

Here are 37 smart goal setting examples to help you copy, paste and amend to suit your needs.

SMART goals are simple to describe, but often, harder to create in practice.

For this reason, think of the following SMART goal setting examples in this article, as a swipe file you can use for your needs.

I have split them into the following areas:

Strategy – Based around the big picture
Performance – Goals based around improving delivery
Operational – Based on improving internal processes
Training – based on improving teams and skills
Sales – Improving sales performance
Personal – how to improve self

smart Goal Setting examples

Before we dive into the SMART goal setting examples, it’s worth going through a quick refresher on what SMART is:

Here’s an example of a terrible goal: “To grow my business.”

SMART Goals inject enthusiasm and inspire. They are clear, succinct, and paint a picture of what success looks like or the end goal. If your goals don’t do this, then you might as well not set anything at all.

It stands for:

S – Specific: be clear and concise in describing the ‘what’ (What you want to achieve)
M – Measurable: you have to measure it, so you can be totally clear if you have achieved it or not.
A – Achievable: There’s no point setting goals which are out of that person’s or team’s control. There’s no point too, shooting for the stars if there’s absolutely no chance in attaining it. Be real and respectful.
R – Relevant: Does it mean something to the group or the main goal? If it doesn’t fit with the bigger picture, then don’t create it!
T – Timely: There has to be a description of when it should be completed, otherwise it falls into a task that just constantly gets put off! Ever seen the classic “On going” tag to some actions in your organisation? (A big no-no if you can help it…)

So, in light of the above drab goal “to grow my business,” we could use SMART to transform it into a shiny and inspiring goal!

Perhaps it could be something like, “To increase sales by 25% and grow my profitability by 10%, by the end of this financial year.” Doesn’t that sound better!

Here are some SMART goal setting examples for you to steal!

Strategic / Business Unit Goals Examples

Expand our products into the new commercial market, by the end of this fiscal year.
We want to grow our revenue to 1,000,000 dollars in the next 12 months.
This year, the company will increase the annual guest arrivals by 20 percent from 1,500 guests to 1,800 guests.
Achieve an average customer satisfaction score of 90% for the XYZ product, by the end of the year.
Drive cost out of operational expenses by $95,000, by the end of quarter 2.

Performance Goals Examples

Manage and support the team’s performance to achieve 80% of program targets by the end of the fiscal year.
Coach and support my direct reports, resulting in attainment of 85% of all performance plan goals and feedback, and provide detailed, meaningful and accurate feedback and fair performance evaluations.
Manage the department budget to stay within appropriations and accomplish 85% of service results by the end of the fiscal year.
Achieve a business excellence score of 3.5 by the end of the fiscal year, through implementing the business excellence system and rolling out a training program for all employees.
Implement process improvement techniques to help achieve 8% uptime of equipment and quality of 99%, by September 2017.
Double my website’s traffic within the next 12 months, by providing top quality content and solutions to my readers.
Reduce the customer response times from the Customer Service Team from 48 hours to 24 hours, by completing process improvement activities, within this fiscal year.

Operational Goals Examples

I want to reduce my operational expenses by 25 percent within the next three months, by reducing the number of employee shifts from two to one.
The stamping department will raise stamping production by 20% by the end of this year, through operational efficiency improvements and using our continuous improvement system.
On an ongoing basis, accurately process and dispatch 95% of high quality products from our main warehouse facility.
Conduct an education programme to help reduce customer returns from the assembly department, by 10% by June 2018.
Develop a quality improvement process for the Data analysis system, which reduces the failure rate to 1% by 20^th December 2019.
Transition to a new automated ERP system, with minimal effect on customer service, by developing a training program that ensures that all required staff are competent in their required ERP tasks, no later than 3 months after implementation.
Create 100 new articles for our blog post within the next 3 months.

Training Goals Examples

All employees within the accounts department to be fully trained in using our new accounting software by January 2016.
By June 30, 2011, complete course work and attain a CSAC credential to enhance my skills as an effective leader as measured by feedback from my supervisor and the accomplishment of my performance plan goals.
Complete your certificate in Management by December 2016.
Become a certified digital marketing practitioner within a year.
To learn the core skills required to grow my business within 6 months.

Sales / Marketing Goals Examples

Increase sales by 15% by the end of the next quarter.
Our company will recruit 6 new IT professionals in July this year. We will advertise for the new positions in the print and online media on 6^th September and conduct all interviews by 20th.
By January 31, I will create a new social media messaging process using a clearly defined process and best-practice guidelines, so customers clearly understand our brand, which will help increase our market exposure.
Grow our consumer sales by 10% to reflect a turnover of $150,000 within this market, by the 4th quarter 2018.
To create a new innovative service in response to our customer feedback results, by the end of quarter 2, 2018.
By 20th October, increase the average sales value per customer by 10%, by creating innovative offers and bundles, and offering further choice to maximise our sales.

Personal Goals

Delegate work and tasks more effectively to free up 2 hours a day to work on my own self development, within one month.
Learn effective productivity tools to reduce work from 16 hour days to 12, without compromising productivity, by the end of September.
Present at a minimum of two breakfast seminars per quarter to improve confidence and presenting skills.
Find a mentor to help me develop the required skills for promotion, by the end of the first quarter.

The bottom line:

As long as you stick to the SMART Goals framework, and follow the smart goal setting examples above (and reword them to suit your own environment) then you’ll be setting inspiring and attainable goals in no time, which are crystal clear and provide laser sharp focus.

One last thing to remember is to not have or set too many goals at once. Our short term memories can only cope with around 5 to 7 things at any one time, so to avoid overload, try to keep yours down to a handful, tops. This will ensure maximum focus and productivity…

And minimum mental fatigue and worse still – burnout.

keep that in mind when looking for your smart goals to create for yourself or your teams…

You’re more than welcome, though to take our SMART goal setting examples and do with them what you like!

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