TIME BOUND

TIME BOUND

Friday, November 8, 2024

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Hi! We made it! This is the final post in the SMART goals series. If you haven't checked out the rest, please do so. Today is the letter T for time bound. 

Time bound goes a lot with achievable. And also helps us create a measurable standard. 

If we create a goal without a time limitation then we really aren't setting a goal. We are just talking about "something someday we want to achieve". That's a dream. 

Make sure to be realistic about where you are when you set the time aspect of the goal. If you have a four year old horse that has not been started under saddle it may be unrealistic to expect them to become broke, get a pattern, and fill your permit in one year. 

But make sure you don't extend your time out too far otherwise losing momentum is a danger. The time bound part of the goal keeps us on target. It lets us evaluate along the way and adjust what we need to do in order to achieve the goal. That's how we measure (I told y'all they're all interconnected!)

Make sure to give yourself enough time to achieve the goal, but not so much time that you aren't having to prioritize and work for it. 

Examples of Good Time Frames

• one rodeo season to fill WPRA permit
• five rodeo seasons to make circuit finals
• one rodeo season to make rookie round up
• one series to win a saddle at the local gymkhana
• make it to the NBHA finals this year

Examples of Bad Time Frames

• one rodeo season to make it to fill my permit and make it to the NFR
• one rodeo season to fill my permit and go to circuit finals
• two months to start my colt and win a futurity
• two rodeos to fill my WPRA permit
• win the 1-D at my first jackpot

When you're setting your time frame ask yourself: is this achievable? Am I available to do this (time wise, money wise, effort wise)? Is my horse able to realistically achieve this? 

I hope this series was helpful, and if you ever need help with setting goals please reach out to me on social media! I am happy to help! 

 

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RELEVANT

RELEVANT

Thursday, November 7, 2024

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HELLO! Welcome back to the SMART goals series. If you are just joining us make sure to look back at the past week to get the specifics on the rest of the letters! 

Today we are at R for relevant. 

This one might seem easy because of course if I set a goal that relates to my barrel racing or horse goals it will be relevant to my overall BIG GOAL, right?

Not always. 

If your BIG GOAL is to ultimately pro rodeo and work towards that coveted gold buckle, but you set a goal to win a saddle in the local gymkhana series it doesn't really serve your big goal. Sure, winning the saddle is cool. But no one at the NFR cares if you can do the fun play day events.

And before someone comes for me. I am in NO WAY, shape, or form bashing gymkhanas or local play days. I loved them as a kid growing up. And I had planned to do one for fun with my older gelding, Hootie, but then he got so sick and is recovering now. If your goal is to have fun with your horse and win prizes at gymkhanas then that is amazing. You can still use the SMART goals to plan for those. 

I am just saying if your ultimate goal is to pro rodeo and make barrel racing a career then setting the goal at a local gymkhana is not relevant to that. And quite frankly, it's putting strain on your horse that is unnecessary. Horses are finite. They don't live forever and they don't have unlimited runs, so for me if an event or smaller goal is not relevant to the larger goal then I'm not going to put that strain on them. As well as it taking up your time, money, along with wear and tear on your rig. 

If the goal cannot be tied to your ultimate BIG GOAL, then it might be time to re-evaluate whether or not it's relevant anymore. Or is your big goal not relevant?

Examples of Relevant Things to achieve goal of filling WPRA permit in one rodeo season

• attending WPRA sanctioned jackpots 
• attending WPRA rodeos open to permit holders

Examples of Irrelevant Things to achieve the goal of filling WPRA permit in one rodeo season

• local jackpots without WPRA approval 
• local gymkhanas
• rodeos that are not WPRA approved

Ask yourself: "how does this action support my specific goal?"

And if it doesn't, then evaluate whether or not it is worth the time, energy, effort, and strain on you, your horse, and your equipment. 

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ACHIEVABLE

ACHIEVABLE

Wednesday, November 6, 2024

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Hi! Welcome back to the SMART goals series. Today we are on the letter A for achievable. If you haven't already go back to the past two blogs to get an in depth look at Specific and Measurable. 

Achievable might be the hardest aspect of setting the goal. Often times people will set goals that are way too easy, and then they achieve them well ahead of schedule. This one is less troublesome than when goals are set that are just not in our grasp yet. 

For instance, if someone said they wanted to qualify for the NFR their first year of riding as a beginner rider. Now it could happen, I suppose. But realistically we want to set goals that are difficult and make us work for them, but ones that we can feasibly achieve. If we have never ridden a horse before then maybe let's not seek out a gold buckle right away. 

Setting an achievable goal means you really have to be able to objectively evaluate yourself and your horse. This one is hard because most of us love our horses beyond belief, and we struggle to objectively evaluate them. Just because your horse is not fast enough to win it all, does not make them less worthy. It's okay to critically look at them and know if they can achieve a 1-D status or are gritty enough for pro rodeo. As long as you still take care of them, the horses literally do not care. 

You also have to look at yourself objectively. And your life. If you want to fill your permit in one year, you have to look at the number of events you can attend, where those events are, the cost of entering, cost of traveling there, as well as maintenance of your horses, trailer, truck, and yourself. Are you in good enough shape to rodeo hard? Do you have a reliable truck? Is your trailer safe to go down the road? Can you afford to pay an entry fee and possibly donate that? Answering all of these objectively will help you plan an achievable goal. 

When we set goals that are highly improbable to achieve, it knocks us down and we get set back. It's hard to gain confidence when we continually set goals that are not achievable. And this is not to say that your BIG GOAL shouldn't be your BIG GOAL, but make sure to set these smaller, achievable goals along the way. 

Unachievable Goals Examples

• Goal: Making the top 20 at the pink buckle derby except your horse is five and not even started under saddle
• Goal: making it to the finals at Calgary except you haven't filled your permit yet
• Goal: filling your permit except you don't have a horse that runs consistently 

All of these goals are achievable IF you don't have the exceptions. That's what we are talking about when we say achievable. Make sure you aren't skipping the smaller goals ahead of these in order to achieve them. 

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MEASURABLE

MEASURABLE

Tuesday, November 5, 2024

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Hi! Welcome back to the SMART goals series. Today we are looking at the M for measurable. 

Staying with our goal of filling our WPRA permit in one rodeo season, let's talk about how it is measurable. 

The total we need to earn on the permit to be eligible for a full card is $1000. As we earn money at WPRA approved events, we will be able to measure where we are. If July comes around, and we've only won $500 then we know that from July to the end of September we need to ramp up the events we enter to earn that last $500 and fill the permit. 

We can easily measure our progress in this goal because we have a specific value set with it. Each part of the SMART goal depends on the other parts. 

Examples of Measurement in Other goals:

• Goal: run a sub 17 on a standard - measurement would be how much our time decreases with each run that we make on a standard pattern
• Goal: Qualify for NBHA finals - measurement would be the points we earn in all qualifying approved NBHA events
• Goal: put a really solid pattern on our horse - measured by the responses of our horse, times, turns, picking up leads, etc. (this one is more subjective since we all would have a different idea of what a solid pattern is) This one would also benefit from being broken down more like the goal being: correct leads and lead changes throughout the pattern. Then we could measure solidly on whether those leads and lead changes happen and happen at the spot we want them to. 

Overall, the more specific our goal is the easier it is to measure. 

 

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SPECIFIC

SPECIFIC

Monday, November 4, 2024

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Welcome to the SMART goals series!

Today is S for specific. Let's stick with our BIG GOAL as running at the NFR. So our smaller year goal is to fill our WPRA permit by earning $1000 at WPRA approved rodeos or events. 

While this goal is not the BIG GOAL is it working towards getting us there. If we only focus on the big goal and don't set these smaller very specific goals that's when I find people get off track. It is easy to feel like we aren't making progress on the goals if we have this one semi specific goal with no real timeline. 

This goal is very specific, and you can make even more specific focused goals that all lead to ultimately achieving the BIG goal. 

The goal of earning $1000 to fill the WPRA permit within one rodeo season is specific with an amount as well as limiting to WPRA approved events. 

Essentially we need to be able to pinpoint EXACTLY what the goal is in order for it to be specific. While this may sound easy, it can sometimes be difficult if we focus too much on our BIG goal rather than breaking it down to smaller parts. 

If our specific goal was "going to the NFR", it would be more difficult to measure the smaller progress. Especially as we are just starting out. 

Examples of Specific Goals

• I want to qualify for the Rookie Round Up during my rookie year.
• I want to qualify to the final round at X rodeo this year.
• I want to be in the top 5 at X rodeo this year.
• I want to be in the top 20 of the derby at the Pink Buckle this year. 

All of these are highly specific so that you can plan backwards of how to get there in the time frame allotted. 

Tomorrow we go in depth with the measurable aspect of SMART goals. 

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GOALS: THE SMART KIND

GOALS: THE SMART KIND

Sunday, November 3, 2024

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I talk quite a bit about goals, and I shared on my social media today about smart goals. I'm going to give the overview here, and then this week I'm going to go in depth everyday on what each of the letters means within the acronym. I hope that this helps y'all put it all together. 

S - specific

M - measurable

A - achievable

R - relevant 

T - time bound

Your goals should be broken down into smaller sections with the overall large goal being the ultimate goal. 

For instance, let's say your BIG goal is to make it to the NFR. 

A smaller goal might be circuit finals, or rookie round up during your rookie year. Or to fill your permit. Let's go with filling your permit.

GOAL: I want to fill my WPRA permit in one rodeo season.

Specific: filling the WPRA permit

Measurable: Along the way we can measure our progress to the $1K needed to fill the permit

Achievable: You have from October 1 through September 30 as the rodeo year, so if you plan correctly for rodeos and events that are WPRA approved you could certainly fill it

Relevant: It is relevant to your overall goal because until you fill the permit you can't get a card. Without the card you cannot make it to the top 15 and go to the NFR

Time Bound: This goal is time bound as you've given yourself one rodeo year to achieve it

For more specifics on how to create these goals along each step of the way read this week!

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HORSE FACT FRIDAY: PPID OR CUSHINGS

HORSE FACT FRIDAY: PPID OR CUSHINGS

Friday, October 25, 2024

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My apologies for missing the last two weeks of Horse Fact Friday. I've just been so busy with my own sick horse that this hasn't been the priority. Since I do research for these blogs, they are a little more time consuming to write than ones where I just share my feelings, thoughts, and life. 

But we are back this week, talking about a condition that affects a large number of horses as the graphic above shows. And that is PPID or as it's more commonly referenced Cushings.

What is PPID?

PPID stands are pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction. 

It is an endocrine disorder that affects 30% of horses, ponies, and donkeys over the age of 15. With PPID, there is an enlargement and benign tumors that appear in the pituitary gland. (The pituitary gland is often called the "master gland" as it is responsible for producing and regulating many of the body's hormones.) Fortunately, the tumors usually do not spread and rarely become large enough to cause a neurological disease. However, they do cause the pituitary gland to produce and release hormones that create an abnormal metabolic state.

How can we tell if our horse has it?

Some clinical symptoms of this include delayed shedding of the coat, muscle wasting (especially along the toppling), weight loss, increased thirst and urination, excessive sweating or an abnormally dry coat, behavior changes, reproductive abnormalities, and frequent infections.

The only way to truly know is to have your veterinarian test for it. The test is called the ACTH. There is also an overnight dexamethasone suppression test, the thyrotropin releasing hormone stimulation test, as well as doing a CBC (complete blood count) in their overall geriatric evaluation. Testing for insulin dysregulation is also a course of diagnostics. 

**reminder I am not a veterinarian, and none of this information is a replacement for veterinary care and diagnostics**

What can happen to my horse if they have this?

Along with the other clinical symptoms a horse can have dental disease, chronic sinus and skin infections, intestinal parasite, along with just a general ill thrift. There may also be co-existing disorders such as metabolic problems, colic, diarrhea, pneumonia, as well as developing insulin dysregulation which increases the risk of laminitis. 

The body is unable to fight infections, viral or bacterial, as well leaving the horse vulnerable. 

How do we treat it?  

Symptomatically treatments can include clipping the coat, changing the diet, dental care, and regular wellness care.

There is also medication called peroglide mesylate. The name brand is commonly known as Prascend. 

If you think your horse may have Cushing's please find a veterinarian in your area to start treatment. 

  

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