Make Your Strategic Goals A Reality

This article originally appeared in Wisconsin State Farmer

The season of New Year’s resolutions is upon us. This time of year, we start reflecting on what we have accomplished and what we would like to achieve in the year ahead. We set New Year’s resolutions to motivate us to positively change our behaviors and practices to help us achieve a goal or vision for our future. Unfortunately, these tend to be forgotten or dropped within just a couple of weeks or months. Resolutions fail for many reasons including lack of accountability, unrealistic expectations, lack of motivation, no specific measures of success to strive for, and unexpected barriers.

Before jumping right into those new resolutions, take some time to remind yourself of your big-picture or long-term vision for yourself and your farm business, set strategic goals to align with your vision, develop an attainable plan of action, and identify who is responsible for each part of the plan.

Why do you need to set goals?

Goal setting is a process that helps you figure out how to achieve your future vision or desired outcome. Goals are the starting point for helping you reach your ideal future. Each decision, action, and goal should be made with the future in mind.

Take a moment to think about the vision for your farm business. A vision is often a 3-, 5-, or 10-year glance into the future. Try writing a 1-2 sentence statement about what your farm will achieve or be known for. Does your vision come to mind quickly?

Farms that lack a shared vision can find themselves adrift and struggling to know which direction to go. If this sounds familiar, investigate the opportunity to lead your farm through a strategic visioning process. This gives each member of the farm team an opportunity to develop, understand, and contribute to setting the farm’s vision, strategy, and goals.

Once you establish your vision, communicate it to each member of your farm team including business partners and employees. Every team member must clearly understand what is most important to the organization. This is critical to ensuring your vision is achieved and there is a commitment to the goals you set up.

Goals supply the strategic framework for results and keep the focus on what matters most. They prioritize which decisions and actions are critical for quickly moving forward in the right direction, and they define what success looks like.

Goals are most powerful when they are owned by the people responsible for achieving them. Involving the team or employee in the goal development process and working together to name the specific measures needed to confirm progress improves commitment to and achievement of the goal.

How do you set achievable goals?

Begin by developing an aspirational statement that is meant to achieve action towards the farm’s vision and strategy. You are answering the question, “What do I hope to achieve that contributes to the farm’s growth and success?”

How can you make goals actionable?

Take each goal and break it down into building blocks or smaller goals. It can help to identify which decisions need to be made and which actions need to be taken to achieve the goal.

Assign a responsible individual to each of these steps and provide the date they need to complete it. Always make sure to schedule regular check-ins and make changes, as necessary.

Using these goal-setting strategies can help you develop goals and resolutions for the New Year that are achievable and successful. Discover tools, workshops, and resources that can help you create your vision and achieve your goals by visiting farms.extension.wisc.edu.

Read more of Stephanie’s articles on setting goals and strategic thinking:

• Establishing Your Values and Purpose – Strategic Thinking for the Farm Business
• Set Your Farm Strategy with Daily Habits and Time for Strategic Thinking