Are You Stuck? Or Moving Forward?

By: Dr. Nels Lindberg, Production Animal Consultation

We are well into the New Year, 2016, and with every new year comes opportunity to intentionally choose to “get better” at what we do every day.

The difficulty in that is a.) we have to choose to get better in 2016, b.) we have to or should write down what getting better looks like to ourselves, and c.) we have to make those things happen.

The great thing is that with each new year, we have the opportunity to “hit the reset button.” 2015 may have been a horrible year. You may have lost a parent, lost a grandparent, got in an accident, got in trouble with the law, gotten a divorce, neglected spending good time with your wife or children, or worst yet, maybe even lost your spouse or a child. Or worse yet, you may have had a bad year in 2012 and still haven’t moved forward from that bad year. Maybe you have been “stuck” in a funk or a rut for a long period of time year.

The awesome part about all of this is there is hope and great opportunity to get after it, put one foot in front of the other, and move forward with confidence.

It isn’t January 1 anymore, but please remember, January 1 is the best time to sit down, reflect, give thought, and come up with some work and personal goals. The key is taking the time to do so, which takes commitment, as your goals just won’t appear on paper! And if you have been like me in the past, December 31 was a helluva night, and I wasn’t worth 10 cents the next day and didn’t accomplish a darn thing! Zero, nada, nothin! But, keep in mind, January 1 is a great day to not only write down your goals but to also sit down with your family and come up with goals for your family.

As an example one of my son Nash’s goals, for this year is to get better at sports and stop worrying so much. MacKenzie, my daughter, one of her goals was to help the dogs stop barking! How bout that! They gotta start somewhere! And they have others but they wouldn’t let me share them. You can only imagine, coming from 8 year olds!

So goals, what do they look like, or how do I write them? They need to have four key aspects contained in them to be good solid goals. They must be specific, be measurable, have a time limit, and be written down.

If you want to really challenge yourself and hold yourself accountable, you will share your goals with your wife, your team leader, and good friends. I would say this is the 5th aspect that really makes a person attain them, as none of us like to fail at something we put down on paper and share with key people in our lives.

I have asked a number of cowboy crews and yards to do this, specifically to write down three goals for themselves at the yard and 3 more goals for their personal lives.

I have gotten goals such as improve my cowboy case fatality rate from 8% to 5% by summer, reduce my untreated pen deads each month from 2 to 1, work to exercise 1 pen a day, improve my horsemanship by next fall, etc. I have also gotten goals like spend more quality time with my kids each day, not drink a beer or two every day, work to save my marriage, get my pickup paid off, etc.

Remember, we all have problems, we all have personal challenges and demons we battle within. But we all also have tremendous assets and positives in our life, and all things are possible through hard work, determination and perseverance.

It’s 2016! It’s a great year to RAISE YOUR STANDARDS! It’s a great year to EXPECT MORE OUT OF YOURSELF! Raise your standards in all areas of your life, and never accept anything less and darn sure not mediocrity! This world needs each of us to do so. Your feedyard or operation and team members need you to do expect more out of yourself, both at work and at home!

Be intentional, sit down, write your goals down, share them with someone (preferably your team leader and your significant other), and execute them! Get UNSTUCK!