When you think about working to achieve a goal on your farm, which seems more manageable: a smaller goal that you and your operation are able to reach in a short timeframe, or a larger goal that requires a lot of work over time, making progress seem slow?

Most people will be inclined toward choosing a smaller goal that’s achievable in a shorter timeframe. That's because it’s motivating to be able to reach a goal at all, even if it’s a comparably small win or doesn’t make an enormous difference overall.

This is because of human psychology. When we see that we’ve been able to do what we set out to do, it gives us a bump of encouragement. It spurs us on toward tackling and achieving our next goal because we see that we have some momentum. We feel that we’re making progress, and then that motivates us further.

Get it going

Are most of the goals on your farm – the ones that will make the biggest difference to the overall success of the operation – big ones? That’s typical on most top farms. The goals that will propel the farm to success generally are going to be large and require a lot of work – usually by multiple people within the operation.

As I mentioned earlier, big goals can appear so large and daunting at first that people might step back from them or even avoid them altogether, simply because the goal seems so unmanageable and unreachable. But there’s something you and your team can do to help get started on that bigger goal: break it down.

Break it down

The key is in breaking down the major, large goal for the farm into smaller, ‘bite-size’ chunks or even a series of mini-goals. That’s especially important for goals that have multiple steps or separate checkpoints where it makes sense to break it up.

Again, this helps most people (including the farm leader) prevent feeling overwhelmed by a major goal. Knowing that there is a separate smaller piece or chunk of the goal that they can move toward right now simply makes the work seem more manageable. Plus, when that chunk or piece is completed, there’s progress made which is motivating in terms of taking the next small step toward the goal.

Progress naturally builds on itself this way. It also can be very motivating for the farm’s team to visually see the farm’s big goals laid out in some way that tracks the progress that’s being made by team members over time toward the overall goal or goals.

Try it now

Try this out with one of your farm’s biggest goals for 2023. Pick just one goal to break down into smaller chunks or mini-goals. You can start by breaking it into five or so chunks initially, and then go back and break those chunks down further into smaller steps for you or your team members.

Then set up spots that make sense as a ‘mini-goal’ that demonstrates progress being made toward the bigger goal. It could be getting to a certain number or the completion of a series of tasks – whatever makes sense for the overall goal. Once you’ve laid this out, think of a way to let your team visually see the progress – maybe you can display it on the shop bulletin board or anywhere your team will see each day.

2023 markets

Have you set up marketing goals for 2023? Now is the right time to be creating marketing plans for this year and beyond. A market advisor can help with providing education, marketing tools, and market planning for your unique operation and your future goals.

Farmers have found that getting some third-party perspective from our market advisors has helped ease their minds. The advisors help farmer clients with planning and execution around marketing decisions and help keep them up to speed on the current rapidly-changing grain market situation – and how it impacts their operation.

Get a free two-week trial of our marketing information service (MarketView Basic). Your free trial includes regular audio and video updates, technical analysis, recommendations and more. Learn more about our market advisor programs and offerings at www.waterstreetconsulting.com.