Resolutions are fragile things. What if we looked at them as goals instead?

Troy Marshall 2, BEEF Contributing Editor

January 19, 2017

1 Min Read
Resolutions vs. goals: What are yours for 2017?
Silhouette young woman Enjoying on the hill and 2017 years while celebrating new yearoatawa / ThinkStock

The data suggest that if you made some resolutions at the start of 2017, the majority of those resolutions have already probably gone by the wayside. I don’t think those experts, though, are talking about cattlemen. When we slip up on our resolutions, we rarely wait a full year to start over. In the cattle industry, we make new resolutions on Jan. 2, Jan. 3 and every day going forward. That is how we are wired.

Resolutions are always fragile. What we are really talking about is setting and achieving goals. Not surprisingly, there has been a lot of science looking at how to achieve goals. What is surprising is that we tend not to implement that science. Kinda sounds like New Year’s resolutions, doesn’t it?

The experts tell us to go big when setting goals. Goals should stretch you and push your performance. Little goals don’t inspire and drive change. They also tell us to narrow our focus. Like the book One Big Thing, we just need to narrow our focus to what is truly important.

The third step has been promoted for a long time, but still gets widely ignored. Write your goals down. Once you identify your objectives and a plan to get there, you have to set some metrics to manage your process. Finally, it is important to create accountability to the process of achieving our goals. And then, you just need to get started.

Personally, the hardest part of those key drivers is narrowing my focus to the truly important. There are so many important things that need to be addressed that it is increasingly difficult to narrow my focus to the degree that is required to make significant headway.  

About the Author(s)

Troy Marshall 2

BEEF Contributing Editor

Troy Marshall is a multi-generational rancher who grew up in Wheatland, WY, and obtained an Equine Science/Animal Science degree from Colorado State University where he competed on both the livestock and World Champion Horse Judging teams. Following college, he worked as a market analyst for Cattle-Fax covering different regions of the country. Troy also worked as director of commercial marketing for two breed associations; these positions were some of the first to provide direct links tying breed associations to the commercial cow-calf industry.

A visionary with a great grasp for all segments of the industry, Troy is a regular opinion contributor to BEEF Cow-Calf Weekly. His columns are widely reprinted and provide in-depth reporting and commentary from the perspective of a producer who truly understands the economics and challenges of the different industry segments. He is also a partner/owner in Allied Genetic Resources, a company created to change the definition of customer service provided by the seedstock industry. Troy and his wife Lorna have three children. 

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