What Are SMART Goals? A Clear, Elegant Framework for Structured Ambition
- Jacqueline May
- Dec 10, 2025
- 5 min read
What are SMART goals?
SMART goals are a strategic framework built around five core elements: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.
Instead of vague resolutions or open-ended aspirations, SMART goals transform ambition into a clear plan that defines the outcome, the metrics, the behaviors, and the timeline.
They shift you from “I hope” to “I will.”
Why were SMART goals created?
The model emerged from decades of organizational psychology research showing that people perform better when goals are:
clearly defined
appropriately challenging
paired with measurable progress
supported by feedback loops
SMART goals operationalize these findings, giving you a structure that increases motivation, supports consistency, and reduces ambiguity.
Why do SMART goals matter for ambitious women?
Ambitious women often navigate layered responsibilities, unspoken expectations, and environments where clarity is a scarce resource.
SMART goals help by offering:
precision for decision-making
measurable progress for visibility and leverage
structure that reduces overwhelm
momentum through consistent, achievable wins
SMART goals give our ambition direction, traction, and evidence.
Example of a SMART goal:
Instead of: “I want to grow professionally.”
Try: “I will complete one leadership certification course and lead two cross-departmental initiatives by December 2026 to increase my readiness for a senior role.”
The Science of Ambition: Why SMART Goals Unlock Performance for High-Achieving Women
How does motivation science explain why SMART goals work?
The SMART framework aligns directly with the strongest research in motivation psychology. While there is ongoing debate as to who actually coined the term, the concept of setting specific and measurable goals in relation to performance started circulating around 1940’s and 1950s, mainly in educational engineering publications, although not mentioning the acronym directly (see Peter Drucker’s The Practice of Management).
In that sense, it is a relatively new concept. Interestingly, many intellectuals did not believe that goal motivation was something that came from within and therefore not worth studying. Not until about thirty years later were we loudly introduced as the SMART acronym we know today (see George T. Doran’s article Management Review; Blanchard and Hersey 5th edition of Management of Organizational Behavior).
Finally, in 2022 we received the empirical research to back the effectiveness of the SMART framework with Locke and Latham’s 35-year study on goal-setting theory.
Locke & Latham: Why specific goals outperform vague intentions
Their goal-setting theory—validated across hundreds of studies—shows that people perform best when goals are:
specific
challenging
time-bound
paired with feedback
As mentioned in their 1988 article, Locke and Latham state;
We also compared the effect of specific, difficult goals to a commonly used exhortation in organizational settings, namely, to do one’s best. We found that specific, difficult goals consistently led to higher performance than urging people to do their best. The effect sizes in meta-analyses ranged from .42 to .80 (Locke & Latham, 1990). In short, when people are asked to do their best, they do not do so. This is because do-your-best goals have no external referent and thus are defined idiosyncratically. This allows for a wide range of acceptable performance levels, which is not the case when a goal level is specified. (Locke & Latham, 2002, par. 8)
This research grounds the “Specific,” “Measurable,” and “Time-bound” aspects of SMART.
Bandura: How SMART goals build confidence and mastery
To build on another piece of the SMART puzzle, Psychologist Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy theory proves that people act more decisively when they believe their actions influence outcomes.
SMART goals strengthen that belief by:
breaking big ambitions into smaller steps
making progress visible
reinforcing mastery over time
Confidence grows through proximity, not pressure.
Amabile & Kramer: Why progress fuels daily motivation
The Progress Principle shows that small wins on meaningful work are the strongest day-to-day motivator.
SMART goals create these wins through metrics, milestones, and scheduled check-ins.
What this means for ambitious women
With multiple demands competing for attention, SMART goals reduce spinning and help channel energy into a few well-defined, high-impact priorities.
How does leadership research show that SMART goals give women an edge?
Are women naturally aligned with this framework?
Many women’s leadership strengths map seamlessly onto SMART goal-setting.
Transformational leadership (where women often excel)
Meta-analyses show women tend to score slightly higher in transformational leadership—roles involving vision, inspiration, and developing others.
Transformational leaders thrive when goals are clear, value-driven, and measurable—the exact environment SMART goals create.
Emotional intelligence as a leadership advantage
Leaders with high EI communicate more effectively, align teams around goals, and navigate complexity with greater clarity.
SMART goals give emotionally attuned leaders a structure for turning relational insight into measurable outcomes.
Impact of women in leadership ecosystems
Research shows that women leaders often strengthen:
organizational culture
innovation pipelines
ethical practices
upward mobility pathways for other women
SMART goals help them model results that are visible, replicable, and scalable.
The Atelier implication
SMART goals do not force women into rigid frameworks. They refine an existing advantage—making relational, meaningful leadership more strategic and defensible.
What barriers do women face in pursuing ambition, and how do SMART goals help navigate them?
The Double Bind
Women are expected to be both agentic (decisive) and communal (supportive). Exceeding either expectation invites criticism. SMART goals resolve this tension by allowing women to be:
agentic in clarity, planning, and ownership
communal in articulating shared outcomes and team alignment
It becomes a leadership posture rather than a personality trap.
Bias in performance evaluation
Research shows women’s results are often undervalued—even when equal or greater than men’s—and ambition is misinterpreted. SMART goals provide hard evidence:
metrics
impact trails
revenue or efficiency data
documented progress
Bias is harder to sustain when the receipts are visible.
Women’s natural mastery orientation
Many women exhibit mastery-driven goal profiles—motivated by improvement, growth, and excellence. SMART goals support this through measurable, iterative progress that honors both ambition and evolution.
How SMART goals build strategic capital for ambitious women
SMART goals strengthen three forms of capital essential for career acceleration and entrepreneurial success.
Cognitive & Emotional Capital
Reduces decision fatigue
Improves focus amid competing demands
Sustains motivation through small wins
Supports creativity by simplifying what matters
You preserve mental bandwidth for meaningful work.
Social & Political Capital
Signals strategic clarity
Demonstrates leadership presence
Aligns teams around shared outcomes
Helps navigate stereotype constraints with precision
In complex environments, clarity is social leverage.
Economic & Career Capital
SMART goals create measurable narratives around:
revenue lifted
costs saved
efficiencies created
teams developed
initiatives led
This becomes the evidence portfolio for:
promotions
capital raises
investor pitches
board positions
entrepreneurial pivots
SMART goals help women tell the story of their careers with coherence and power.
How should ambitious women design SMART goals that fit their reality?
1. Start with meaning
Choose goals tied to work that feels purposeful. Progress is more sustainable when it matters.
2. Make goals specific, challenging, and resourced
A goal without support (time, tools, agency) will stall. Ensure the structure exists for success.
3. Build in reflection and feedback loops
Brief weekly or monthly reviews allow you to adjust, refine, and stay aligned with your values and bandwidth.
4. Tie each goal to a future opportunity
Ask: “What story will this allow me to tell later about my capability, scope, and leadership?”
This keeps ambition directed, not scattered.
The Atelier Takeaway
SMART goals are a research-backed, leadership-aligned, psychologically sound way to transform ambition into evidence.
They give ambitious women:
clarity
momentum
authority
a measurable record of success
In a world that still asks women to prove themselves often twice, this goal framework ensures we have the metrics, in addition to the narrative, to match our talent.
Download the Atelier SMART Goal Worksheet
If you’re ready to design goals with clarity and intention, we’ve created a beautifully structured SMART Goal Worksheet to guide your next chapter. It distills the research, the strategy, and the psychology behind effective goal-setting into a refined, easy-to-use format.
It’s complimentary for the Atelier community—your first step toward creating goals that feel aligned, actionable, and worthy of the woman you’re becoming.
Comments