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How to hit your Equestrian Goals every time without fail in 5 steps (plus the secret sauce)

5 Steps on how to hit your goals EVERY TIME without fail! 💥

The end of the summer season is the perfect time to start thinking about your next set of equestrian goals, and we have the fool proof way to make it happy every time! Backcasting 🎯. Explanation 👇

Follow these steps:
👉 1. Set a Realistic Goal
👉 2. Start Planning from the End
👉 3. Plan Backwards
👉 4. Set Milestone Dates
👉 5. Review & Reset

and BOOM 💥 Goal Achieved 🏆

Forecasting is out and Backcasting is in! Backcasting allows you to envision each little step needed to achieve the next and work back until todays date.

 

Let's walk through an example with our 5 steps below:

1. Set a realistic Goal

Don't expect too much to soon. Setting realistic expectations will help you stay motivated and on track as you achieve your milestones especially when your equestrian goal involves not only yourself achieving it but your horse!

👉🏻To keep things simple, my equestrian goal for this example is going to be "to have my horse fit and ready for the start of the Spring competition season" (trust me, this isn't always easy). It is realistic and it is within my capabilities and skills. 

 

2. Start at the end by setting the timeframe. 

By when do you want to achieve this goal? 3 months, 6 months, 1 year? Set the time frame making sure it is realistic to achieve within this.

👉🏻 The start of the spring season for me will be beginning of August. This is a realistic timeframe, it is not so far away in time that it feels like I can never achieve it and it's not so soon that it sends me into a tailspin. 

 

3. Plan Milestones Backwards

What’s required to make this end situation possible? And what’s required for that? Keep jumping backwards until you get to your current situation. You’ve now sketched a roadmap with all the important milestones to take.

👉🏻 My milestones working backwards from the end goal of being competition ready would be:

  • My horse will be jumping fit
  • My horse will have appropriate fitness to beginning jump schooling
  • My horse will have been gently brought back into work before starting fitness schooling
  • My horse needs an Autumn turnout

4. Set Milestone Dates

Now you know the milestones, you need to set the dates by when you would have to achieve them to get to your end goal. Work all the way back until today.

👉🏻 My milestone dates would be:

  • my horse needs to be jumping fit for 4 weeks before first show so I need to start Jump schooling beginning of July
  • my horse needs fitness schooling for 4 weeks before jump schooling, so I need to start fitness regime beginning of June
  • my horse needs 2 weeks of hacking out before beginning fitness regime, so I need to start hacking out in the middle of May
  • my horse needs 4 weeks of turnout before coming back into work, so I need to turn my horse out for a break by the middle of April.

5. Review & Reset

Now you have worked all the way back to present day, is your goal still realistic within the time frame? i.e is your first milestone achievable in the time you have left or would you have had to start last week? Consider adjusting your end date if it's the latter.

👉 I still have 4 weeks until the middle of April, so my goal and my milestones are achievable within these dates.

 

Ok so because you made it this far, now I'm going to give you the secret sauce that I didn't share on social media....

 

Step 6! Plan out what equipment you need or anything you need to action to achieve those Milestones. These are mini Milestones and you can add dates to these as well. 

👉🏻 My horse will be jumping fit: I need to have jumped a variety of horse jumps and jumping courses at home and at other venues. I have Show Jumping and Show Hunter jumps at home so I don't need any other Horse Jump Equipment. I also have a Pipe Dressage Arena at home for variety in between Horse Jump workouts. I do need to locate a couple of Jumping Arenas that I could travel to that are within 30 minutes of home so I can practice a few courses off-site. 

👉🏻 My horse will have appropriate fitness to beginning jump schooling: I don't need anything for this, our existing equipment will do and I can ride on the farm even in bad weather. If necessary I can road-ride if it gets really muddy. 

👉🏻 My horse will have been gently brought back into work before starting fitness schooling: The farm makes for a great hacking and hills at a walk will be a great way to stretch my horse out. I don't need anything else for this except maybe to make sure that the Horse Mounting Block is handy when we start again. My horse can be a little fidgety when coming back into work and I'm a little stiff after a break!

👉🏻 My horse needs an Autumn turnout: Great! The weather is starting to turn and I'm in deniable about bad weather still. I need to purchase my Herdd Bedding in bulk for the winter to get the best deal for my horse stable bedding, and I also need to make sure I have enough hay in the shed to get us through winter stabling and paddocking. I have a Paddock Hay Feeder so that I don't lose a bunch of hay on the ground and waste precious gold..... I'm good to go!!