I’m sure almost every blog on the face of the earth is probably doing some version of a “2026 New Year Goals” blog right now.
I don’t want this to be one of those clichéd posts where I encourage you all to join the gym, and eat more greens. That’s definitely not my remit!
What I would like to do, is share my process for how I am setting training and trialling goals for Hail and I in 2026.
How to Set Proper Goals
Goal setting can be a tricky business. It’s easy to bite off more than you can chew. There’s nothing worse than starting the year with a hiss and a roar, only to have your enthusiasm fizzle out by the middle of March.
This sort of thing often happens when we don’t make our goals tangible enough. If things are too loose, our momentum gets lost. Once that happens and a goal has wilted, it can be near on impossible to resurrect it… So what’s the answer?
In my normal job, as a high school teacher, I’m forever encouraging my students to make S.M.A.R.T. goals.
S.M.A.R.T. goals are:
Specific – The goal is clear. You know exactly what you’re setting out to achieve. You’ll also have a plan of what it will take to achieve the goal. I think this is the easiest part of the goal setting process, as most of us are pretty good at identifying what we’d like to get done.
Measurable – You can easily measure your progress to completing the goal. Being measurable means you can see and feel when progress is happening, which will make you show up more consistently. This is like putting units onto your goal. It pays to think about what little steps of progress you would need to see to know you are still on the right track.
Attainable – The goal is realistic. It’s something you could achieve with your current skill level (or perhaps a slight extension of it, if you are prepared to do the work) AND is also something that could be completed within a realistic timeframe. My general rule here is to estimate how long you think something will take and add 50%. Trust me!
Relevant – The goal is important to your life right now. It’s something that you genuinely want to do, not something that you feel obliged to do. It’s also a goal that you have the time and resources to successfully accomplish. I actually think this is the toughest part of the goal setting process. It takes a lot of honesty to get this bit right.
Timebound – This is all about timeframe. You set an end date and that becomes your goalpost. You might even break a bigger goal into smaller parts and have a timeframe for the different sections. This is often a good idea if you struggle with focus. Achieving lots of smaller tasks is often easier to commit to than completing one massive task.
So that’s the theory. But what does that look like in practice?
Our S.M.A.R.T. Goals for 2026
Drill Work
OK, so in 2025 Hail and I subscribed to The Retriever Coach program by Kevin Cheff. We are currently working our way through the Three-Handed Casting drill in his Fundamentals. We have taken things at our own pace and, if we stick to our current trajectory, I’d like to think that we could complete the rest of the Fundamentals Drills (Advanced-T, Disciplined Catsing, Wagon Wheel, and Scattered Bumper) by the end of 2026.
What makes this a S.M.A.R.T. goal?
Our goal is specific – ‘Complete Scattered Bumper Drill’ is a clear milestone to reach. More importantly, we have the steps (Kevin’s program) to know how we’re going to do this.
Our goal is measurable – Again, we have the program to make sure we can see our little steps of progress. The program outlines the steps we need to take, as well as gives us the parameters to know that we are seeing success.
Our goal is attainable – Hail and I do have the skills to be able to do this, although I’m well aware that this goal won’t be without it’s challenges. It’s also attainable as we’ve given ourselves a realistic timeframe to complete it in. This timeframe hasn’t been plucked out of thin air, it’s based on data that I’ve collected from previous training and drill work sessions.
Our goal is relevant – This goal directly feeds into other goals that I have for 2026 (more on those in a minute), so the answer here is absolutely! I’m dedicated to improving our skills as a team, and I make time to train regularly. I create and take opportunities to expand on our resource pool whenever I can.
Our goal is timebound – I want to see this goal achieved by the end of 2026… although, it could be something that we complete earlier. Given what I know about how quickly (or slowly, depending on how you look at it) we move through drill work, I think my estimate of 12 months to complete four drills is probably about right. But, I’m also ok with that timeline shifting out if that’s what Hail needs… Remember, it takes as long as it takes.
Marking and Field Skills
Our field work goal for 2026 follows much the same ethos as for our drill work. We are currently at around the “Wide Open Staggered Triple” stage of our field work development using The Retriever Coach program. Our goal is to progress through the fundamentals sections of this and into the Intermediate section by the end of 2026.
I anticipate that we might go through this a little faster than the drill work. I’m not sure what that’s based on, maybe the fact that Hail is naturally a fairly good marker? Watch her show me up here!
I think the biggest challenge for us will be my enthusiasm for setting up field work drills. It’s a personality thing, I think. As a control freak, I like the tidiness and predictability of drill work set-ups. Setting up marking drills adds a whole lot of stuff that I can’t always accurately estimate and account for. This is definitely something I need to work on as a trainer for the year, too!
Field Trialling Goals
With our training goals pretty well mapped out, I also want to have some Field Trial goals for the year.
I always find this a funny one to think about, as there are so many aspects of competition which are out of my control. Again, some of the elements of S.M.A.R.T. goals crop up here. For example, it would be unattainable to set a goal that we “win X amount of trials in 2026”. I can’t control that. Yep, I could train really bloody hard all year, but there is still no guarantee that I’d get the outcome I was looking for. Not to mention, I’d likely burn myself, and my dog, out by April.
When I’m thinking about my competition goals, ones where my input might not necessarily be reflected by the outcome, I try to take a slightly different approach to goal setting.
I’m a little more flexible on things, and while I have some ‘plans’ they aren’t as concrete as they are for my training goals.
Our field trial goals for 2026 are:
- Aim to consistently have Novice Land scores of 90 points or above.
- Improve our Novice Water scores to consistently have 90 points or above.
- Successfully complete a blind in a Novice Walk-Up, where we are required to handle onto the bird.
- Prepare for our (hopeful) entry into the Limit class – this is a tough one. I could enter Hail in Limit now, but we don’t have consistent handling in the field for blinds yet. I want to wait until she has at least two Novice wins before I start going to Limit… we are a long way off, and with stiff competition, this will likely be on our goals list for a few years yet.
What Else Are We Working On?
Me.
I want to work on me this year…. but not in the way you might expect.
If you look at the goals I’ve mentioned above, you can easily pick out at least six different goals, more if you want to split hairs. That’s plenty to keep Hail and I busy.
But, as with all things, there is a darker side of goal setting that we need to talk about.
One of the things I’ve noticed about myself in recent months is that I’ve been feeling pressure to train and to keep up with my peers. This isn’t something that anyone else has placed on me, I want to make that clear. This is just the weird game that my brain plays with itself. And, it’s taken me to some pretty negative places.
It can be so easy to fall into the trap of comparison, the greatest thief of joy in any pursuit. It causes me to rush things when I know we’re not quite ready to move on. It makes me actively avoid training because I convince myself that we don’t have what it takes before we’ve even hit the training grounds. It has me in knots at the end of the day because I feel like we’re falling behind in some imaginary race that I’ve invented in my head.
It has me comparing what I have, and what I can give, with other people who are living totally different realities to me. Even as I write this, I can see how dumb that sounds!
My reality is that I work an emotionally demanding full-time job. I live in the suburbs with limited training equipment, and wherever I train, I am travelling to grounds that I don’t own. I have an engaging life outside of my dog sport, that I cherish, and I want to develop. I have other hobbies, too, that I’m also keen to expand on.
These realities are not excuses. They’re not my way of skirting the fact that I could sacrifice everything to find more time to train my dog. I don’t want to sacrifice those things for the sake of my dog training. But sometimes, my brain forgets that… and then I end up making those sacrifices without even realising that’s what I’ve done!
What this last few months of reflection have taught me is that you actually can’t have it all. You have to pick and choose what’s most important to you. There’s no judgement in that statement. It’s just a truth.
There’s that old saying, “we all have the same 24 hours in a day” but the reality is, those 24 hours look completely different from one person to the next. They aren’t the same… and they shouldn’t be. What works for me wouldn’t work for someone else. But unfortunately, the lives we see and share online, and the hustle-culture that’s so popular at the moment, have us all convinced that we should be squeezing every last drop out of everything… That if you aren’t the absolute best at something, why did you even bother?
So I’m choosing, if all else fails and we achieve none of our training or trialling goals this year, to be content with what I have and what I can sustainably give to this world of gundogging… and nothing more.
My goal for 2026 is to be balanced in my pursuit of dog training. Yikes!
I’m sure this is going to be a recurring theme in my blog posts for this year. I promise to share with you the whole journey and what it teaches me about myself, my dog, and this wonderful sport of field trialling as we wade our way through it.
Before I wrap up, I want to leave you with something I saw recently that resonated with me. I think this sums up what goal setting is really all about… the one thing we need to remember as we embark on the important task of setting ourselves up for success in the New Year…
“There is literally nothing in nature that blooms all year long, so don’t expect yourself to do so” – Unknown.
Field Notes & Follies 
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