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
