Why would any of us go beyond or push further than what we have grown used to? What makes us take on new actions to go and achieve new things? Vision, mission and personal motivation have all been discussed. Let’s look at another crucial driver – Reference points.
Reference points are ideas, principles or concepts that we hold to be true for ourselves. We hold them as fixed to provide stability in our thinking and to leverage off for guidance – very similar to North on a compass e.g. “you can’t grow without a challenge” may be a reference point for us, meaning that to be improving we need to be creating, learning and pushing beyond what we know now.
Let’s go further and examine defining our boundaries about what we deem possible and not possible for ourselves i.e. our personal expectations. How relevant is this to farming? Our reference points and expectation are major determinants of how well we achieve and how well we consistently achieve. Reference points can be seen as our comfort zones (which we all have). A great example is how the sub 4 minute mile took a long time to break, but once broken many runners began to achieve it because they saw it was “possible.”
Many traditional thinking farmers may not believe it possible to achieve any more than 2% Return on Investment (ROI). Therefore they take actions that tend to justify this belief and are generally not open to other ways to achieve beyond 2% ROI. What they may do is set their upper possibility limit at this level, their standard comfort zone or reference point slightly lower than this and their lower acceptable operating limit well down into the loss making area of business results. This situation feeds on itself and severely limits all expectation and opportunity for better results.
To break out of this mindset and improve results first takes a new belief system. This is gained through a genuine desire to learn, and researching with an open mind from systems and other farm business owners who have achieved the results you want. However actually getting these new results yourself takes a resetting of the reference point and the possibility limits. If you know you can achieve at 2% ROI as standard, how about making 2% your lower acceptable operating limit, setting your reference point just above this and lifting your higher possibility limit to well beyond that, say 5% ROI? Accept that 2% is your minimum and open up the possibilities to improve from there. This has a profound effect on your expectation and belief, not to mention your thinking and actions.
When you then achieve to a new level, you can cement those new possibility limits as your new reality, and therefore expect it of yourself to normally operate that way from then on. Don’t take the old unwanted reality as “how things are done around here.” Open up the possibilities, set your lower acceptable operating limit just below where you are now operating and stretch the upper possibility limit i.e. genuinely lift your expectation!
Yes, this is a choice. The other choice is to take that achievement as a great thing to have happened but sink back to how you have always done it and get the same old results. If you choose this, you have not moved your reference point and possibility limits at all! Unfortunately, many farmers are just getting by because they shrink back to the same old comfort levels. It really depends what you want the most – desiring the best from yourself and life, or just getting by.
From experience it is best to have fewer true reference points than many shaky ones (however if all you have is shaky ones, then start there!). Fewer true reference points allow you to focus far easier and to improve them much more quickly.
In summary, set your current reality as your lower acceptable operating limit and increase your upper possibility limit beyond what you have always achieved. Life (not to mention business results) will become so much more interesting and fulfilling!