Ep 100: Being Proactive About Your Goals
Don’t wait until next year to get ready for next year.
While January 1 might seem like a great time to start fresh and set your goals for the upcoming year, I believe that the most effective way to set ourselves up for success in the new year is to be proactive and start now.
This time of year, at the end of Q3, is my favorite time of year to sit down and set my intentions for the coming year. In my training business, I start by listing out what my goals are with each horse, and then I map out an optimistic and realistic timeline for accomplishing these goals.
My optimistic timeline represents the amount of time it will take me to accomplish each goal if everything goes right. But, in reality, this timeline is usually about half of the time it is going to take me to accomplish that goal. I know that over the course of a year, life will happen, things will come up, and progress will be delayed.
With this in mind, I also like to set a more realistic timeline that takes all of these factors into account. If my optimistic timeline is 6 months, my realistic timeline will be roughly 12 months. This is not to say that I can’t accomplish my goals within the optimistic timeline, but having an extended timeline gives me the grace to handle any setbacks without completely derailing my progress toward these goals.
Having goals is important--but, what is more important is the system you have in place to help you reach those goals. When setting my goals for each year, I also map out the daily actions that I need to implement to support these goals. By taking a proactive approach to my goal setting, this gives me a few months to plan ahead and outline the steps that will help me reach each of my goals.
For example, if I know that I have a rodeo in April, I am not going to wait until March to start getting my horse in shape. Ideally, my horse should be in prime shape by February or March so that I have 1-2 months to practice with my horse at its peak level of performance.
The biggest wild card with any goal is, “can I make the commitment I need to make to implement the system that will help me reach my goals?” When I look at the daily actions I am committing to, it is important for me to remember that one ‘off’ day isn’t an end all be all. If I have a day where my progress gets thrown off course, that doesn’t mean my goals are no longer achievable. I just have to start again, keep implementing my action steps, and continually aim for my 1% each day.
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