SMART Goals Challenge Lesson 1 - Specific

Welcome to Speech Modification’s New Years SMART Goals Challenge!  In this challenge, we’re going to help you reach your goals, with lessons, videos, resources and community support.
Our SMART goals will help you get organized, stay motivated, and celebrate your successes!  I’m excited to take this challenge with you, so let’s get started!

Okay, so what is a SMART goal?  My SMART goals are based on the science of what actually works for improving your pronunciation.  I’ve done the research so you don’t have to. I’m using SMART goals for myself right along with you, so we can celebrate our successes together. 

Let’s take a closer look. First, a SMART goal is SPECIFIC.   When I specifically state my goal, I can measure my progress and celebrate meeting the goal.  I might have a general goal of improving my communication, but when I get specific, I can more easily take the necessary steps to actually improve. Let me give you some examples:
Say my general goal is better pronunciation. What do I do first?  How am I going to be able tell if I’ve reached this goal? While better pronunciation is a great general goal, I need to be more specific than that.  I can break it down to smaller steps which I can measure to show my progress. For example, I can choose the specific goal of spending 30 minutes a week practicing pronunciation.  I can measure this goal. I can work my way up to it, and I can track my improvement from 0 minutes a week to 30 minutes a week.

Another example of a specific goal would be to pronounce a specific sound pattern correctly when saying sentences. Let’s say I know I have difficulty with the R sound.  My goal could be to say 10 sentences with R words correctly. I can practice sentences, record myself, and measure how many times I use R correctly until I can do 10 sentences with no accent errors on the R sound. 

Let’s set a specific goal.  Think about your big, general goal, and then something specific you can do to work towards that big goal.  Choose one of the ideas below, or use this sample and fill in your own idea.

Leave your goal in the comments and share your ideas with our SMART Challenge students!

Choose one of these examples, or use the formula to write your own!

I will practice pronunciation 30 minutes per week.
I will say 10 sentences using an American R sound. 
I will pronounce the word “really” correctly in a sentence. 
I will use an American TH sound correctly 10 times in repeated phrase practice for “in the ____.”
I will complete 1 SMART American Accent Training lesson per week for 6 weeks. 


I will ___________ (action) [Practice, pronounce, complete] ___________ (#/time) [10 times, 30 mins] per __________(time frame) [day/week/month].