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If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change-Wayne Dyer
Work Smarter AND Harder
Photo credit: lpatuscon.org
A lot has been said about Goal Setting. If you Google goal setting or SMART goals, you can spend weeks going through the 18, 800,000 hits, if you’ve got that kind if time. And little wonder…it’s an important skill. It’s hard to accomplish much of anything worthwhile if you don’t set goals…and not just goals, but the right KINDS of goals. As an example, me saying that I want to meet and take a selfie with Ryan Reynolds is a relatively unattainable goal. As the sign says, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” (Note: I found this image during the above-mentioned Google Search. You gotta love Google.)
SMART goals are certainly a better method of goal setting than wishing. As you may be aware, a SMART goal is Specific, Measureable, Agreed Upon (or Attainable), Relevant, and Time-sensitive. So again using Ryan as an example, a better goal would be “I will meet Ryan Reynolds and take one selfie when he is in town to film his next movie in May.” Now granted, this is probably equally unattainable, but it’s a better-written goal, which is the point. And it IS just a goal…it says nothing about the effort or strategy required to actually meet Ryan Reynolds. Nor does it say anything about what I’ll do if Ryan shows in town up and I DON’T MEET HIM! And that is really the point of this post. Sort of.
If I were Queen, SMART goals would actually be SMART-ER goals. Incidentally, if you search SMARTER goals in Google there are some variations on that theme as well, but not the version I’m thinking of. My SMART-ER goals are Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-sensitive, ETHICAL, and RESILIANT.
Like I said, there are many articles that detail the SMART part. If you want to review, try this reading this one (specific to horses) or this one (not specific to horses). But lets talk about ethics and resilience.
From an ethics perspective, essentially anyone can “win” through cheating. It’s a shortcut, it’s disrespectful, it doesn’t suggest ability, and frankly, it DOES suggest you don’t want to (or don’t know how to) put in the real work required for whatever it is you’re doing. You know you cheated, and I’d ask you…did you do it because you believed you couldn’t actually DO the hard work? I’ll bet that isn’t true. Did you do it because people are paying you to “win” and win quick? More likely, but that makes you a sell out, not a hero. You may “win” externally, but you should be left feeling a bit hollow inside…knowing you did unethical things to get to that “win”. Would you want that behavior on the front page of ________ (insert the horse or other website of your choice)? Probably not.
Frankly, a win through cheating is no real win at all. You may win the external hardware, and some accolades from the horse show groupies, but it isn’t much good for your internal, mental software. It’s far better to win the right way…with honor, with hard work, with respect for your animal or sport, and those around you. Those are the wins that are impressive. Anything else is weak.
The final thing to consider is resilience. Not surprisingly, I have a personal example to share. Last year, I set a goal to run the Disney Half Marathon before I turned 50 in January. I had 7 months to train for it, and while I wasn’t exactly in the best shape of my life, I was motivated. I trained with a friend for roughly 6 months…through super hot weather, cold weather, and rainy weather. In October, we ran a 10 mile “race”, and even though I was almost the last one to finish (I just said I’d run it, I didn’t say I’d run fast), I was convinced I’d be ready. And come January, I was. I rearranged my work schedule and left a rather important professional meeting early to support my friend Jessica, who had decided to run the 10K (6 miles) due to a nasty bout of tendonitis…and she did.
I did all the things I could think of to prepare for my race the next day…ate right, rested, drank plenty of water. I nursed a painful arthritic knee…but I was determined to complete the race, and I knew I would. Then, we attended a fundraising dinner the evening before, which also served as an inspirational event. At the conclusion of dinner, after being completely inspired, fired up and ready to GO it was announced that the Half-Marathon the next day was CANCELED. Yep. Not happening, due to possible lightning in the area.
While I totally understood why it was canceled, and while I was very glad I was not the organizer of the race, it was REALLY disappointing. Six months of training, and poof. Seemingly wasted. I did all the right things…I SET A SMART GOAL for heaven’s sake. And yet…not happening. Come to think of it, I had a similar experience at the last Quarter Horse Congress that I was eligible to compete in Novice Amateur Showmanship, but I wasn’t the lame one in that story. My equine side-kick was. A story for another day. Anyway, my birthday was later in the month, and honestly, I really just wanted to run around Disney.
I did what most people (should) do in such circumstances. I pouted for a while. I moped for a while. And then I started looking for the bright side. I started making plans. I appreciated all of the time I was able to spend with Jessica leading up to the race, as well as the fact that I could actually run that far (albeit slowly), then maybe I’d just change the goal to “Run a Half Marathon while I am 50. In other words, I showed some resilience:
re·sil·ience
rəˈzilyəns/
noun
noun: resilience; plural noun: resiliences; noun: resiliency; plural noun: resiliencies
- 1. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
Yes, I was disappointed. No, it didn’t seem fair. But I could wallow in those things, or I could choose to pull myself up, get out, and appreciate the fact that resilience was something I could fall back on when the SMART goal didn’t quite pan out.
Sometimes in the horse world, horses get sick, hurt, or don’t progress in training like we hoped they would. Sometimes they cost way too much money. Or judges don’t understand that we deserve to win because we’ve worked really hard. (Ok, they probably do understand, but only one person can win, so…), and sometimes we think that based on what Facebook would have us believe, when we set a goal, it just stands to reason that we’ll reach it. But that’s not true. Sometimes we reach the goal, and other times we don’t, and we have to just be glad that we prepared honestly and ethically, hopefully we enjoyed the process, and if we ultimately missed the mark, we showed resilience, got up, and tried again. Not surprisingly, its one more example of what horses teach us.
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