A Moment with Matt: Making Your Priorities a Priority

By Matt Woolfolk

Like everyday life, the purebred cattle business can throw a lot of things at someone and it can be hard to focus on what you view as important. We all have things that we view as important, on and off the farm, and where we believe our time and resources should be allocated. Often times, distractions come along that make it even harder to focus on our priorities. Whether at home, in the office or on the ranch I feel that this quote is a gentle, yet powerful, reminder of keeping focused on what matters most:

“Set your priorities right. If you chase two rabbits, you will lose them both.”

Obviously, I can’t sit here and tell anyone how to prioritize their personal or professional lives and I don’t intend to by any means. Rather, I hope to simply offer my input into how you can become more focused on what you feel is important to making your Beefmaster operation successful.

Within your operation, it is important to have a primary goal that drives all your decisions. Identifying that goal can sometimes be the hardest step. Do you want to sell commercial bulls or are you better equipped to market show heifers? Take inventory of what you already do well, as well as what you can improve upon. Doing so will give some insight on where to focus your program. Once you establish a direction, it’s time to pour as many of your resources as you can into making your operation successful. Before anyone gets the impression that I am implying you should select for a single trait, which is NOT the point I’m trying to make. It takes more than one trait to make a good bull or a good female. It’s important to pinpoint all the traits it takes to succeed in your market and then to attack them collectively. Your cowherd will already do many things well, so build upon that foundation. Advance your weaknesses through genetic selection or alter some management practices to improve upon performance. The hardest part of focusing on your priorities is staying the course through the ups and downs that come with the cattle business. It was a lot easier to be excited and aggressively pursue your goals when feeder calf prices were more than double what they are today. I know it is a lot tougher right now, but staying the course and remaining focused will pay off in the long run. Every step in the right direction, even the smallest step, gets you closer to your end goal.

Whether it’s at home, the office or the barn I hope you are able to devote your time and resources to the things that you deem important. Goals and priorities, both personal and professional, are what drive us to succeed and keep us excited. I hope you are all excited about your own herds and are actively pushing yourself towards those important priorities you have set for success. One day, we will all be able to catch that rabbit that we are chasing.