Creating Daily Joy when Ranching
Shaye Koester 00:00
So if you want to progress and move forward, if you don't want to feel angry all the time, you have to embrace that you are the one who is going to make that change.
Shaye Koester 00:08
Hey, hey, it’s Shaye Koester and I’m your host for the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast where we connect you to ranchers and beef industry enthusiasts who can help you build a more profitable operation and improve your lifestyle. Are you looking for a community of ranchers who support and challenge you to be more profitable and proactive? Then sign-up for our monthly RancherMind events. RancherMinds are mastermind events for ranchers to come together once a month and find solutions for their own and the industry's challenges. Stay connected by following @cattleconvos on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and never miss an episode or event update by signing up for our newsletter on casualcattleconversations.com/newsletter. If you get value out of this episode or any episode drop a comment or tip me by using the link in the show notes. With that, let’s see who our guest is today and connect you to a new resource to improve your own operation and lifestyle.
Shaye Koester 01:03
Hey, folks, it's me again, and to start off today with the episode, it's gonna be me again, I'm going to talk about some of my ranching experience and learning and just kind of have a twist off of my last solo episode. But I really want to share what I'm learning and doing with you guys, too. So that's what we're going to talk about. And today, we're gonna talk about how I personally traded anger and frustration, in for joy and enjoyment. And so if you are someone who just wants to be excited about life or excited about ranching again, or maybe you are excited, but just want to keep that up, this is really the episode for you. And we're going to offer some actionable advice about just choosing joy and how you can bring the joy back to the enjoyment of ranching, if that makes sense. But just before we roll into that, I do want to say, with my RancherMind events. So if you've been following along and following on social media and my website, these aren't really anything I've talked a lot about on my podcast. But what I do is they are mastermind events for ranchers each month. If you're not sure what a mastermind event is, think about a roundtable q&a discussion where I bring in experts, and then there are usually about 15 to 20 ranchers on the call. And you get to connect with one another, you get to connect with the experts on whatever the topic is for that day. And you really get to find answers to whatever problem you're facing on your ranch as it relates to that specific topic. So we've done some on like reproduction and nutrition, grazing management, cattle marketing series, etc. So if you want in on those upcoming events in the future, or you would like access to the recordings for the 2022 series, then the best way to do that is to go on social media. And send me a direct message my social media handle is @cattleconvos, or you can search Casual Cattle Conversations, and send me a message and say, hey, I want the recording. That is the best way to do that. And then I will help you access those recordings once they become available. The cattle marketing series wraps up here in September. So once that is wrapped up, I will be able to release the recordings, make those available for purchase, so that you have access to them. If you're a rancher or if you're a business owner. And you think your company would benefit from hearing the real stories and problems that your customers face. If you're serving ranchers, then let me know because it's available to companies as well. So like I said, if you want those recordings, if you want to hear those conversations, for whatever it may be if it's improving your own ranch or improving your customer service or your company, send me that message on my social media pages once again, that is @cattleconvos. Facebook and Instagram our best. But with that, let's talk about trading in anger for joy.
Shaye Koester 04:23
So, to preface this, I used to really get frustrated pretty easily. If one thing didn't go right. It kind of ruined my whole day. I'd be just be mad. And it wasn't fun. You know, like, wherever we're at in life, something is bound to go wrong. Not everything is perfect. But ultimately we have to choose how we want to feel about that situation. And so where I really found myself in those years of going back and forth between the ranch and college and the ranch and college, it was like, I left the ranch and I was homesick, I wanted nothing more than to just be back. And yes, I miss my family. But a lot of it was like just yearning for the place, I just wanted to be with the cattle. I wanted to be doing what I love. I would have done anything to feed cows every day, even when everyone on my area who does that every day was just getting sick of feeding cows every day, right? And so then I come back. And if one thing went wrong, I'd be frustrated. And I just angry about something. And I just wanted to leave wanting to go back to college. But then I'd get back to college, and the cycle would continue. And it was almost like I wasn't happy anywhere I was at. And so obviously, a lot of this comes with maturity. But where I found the solution, it wasn't necessarily in my direct actions. It wasn't necessarily in what I was involved in, because I knew I was passionate about ranching. I knew that that's what I wanted, it's what I always come back to. And I found the solution in my mindset shift.
Shaye Koester 06:12
And now what I mean by that is it wasn't necessarily the circumstance or the situation, because we can't control that. We can control the controllables. But when it gets to a point where we're in a situation that we just simply can't control because we're humans, and there's a lot of other factors in our life, then it comes down to, well, we can't directly control this situation, but the controllable is our mind and how we think about that situation, and how we are viewing ourselves within that situation.
Shaye Koester 06:49
To start off when we're looking at trading and anger for joy, and finding enjoyment and ranching again, and making that difference. And I'm going to back up here, it's not just enjoyment and ranching, it's enjoyment in life, like, don't get me wrong, I have hard days. But after working on my mindset, and working with a mindset coach, I find so much more joy in life in general, no matter what gets thrown my way no matter what goes on. Because I can control my mind. And I just I live my life happy. There's in the simplest way possible. That's what it is, I'm living my life happil and like I want to, despite whatever come gets thrown at me.
Shaye Koester 07:33
That first step is to recognize the current feeling or emotion that is present in your situation. If machinery breaks down, the cows break through a gate, break down a fence, whatever it may be, if your automatic emotion or feeling is that you're ticked off. You might be cussing a bluestreak. You might just be angry and mad. And that's okay. Like, that's just part of it, you're gonna feel those emotions no matter what. So the first step is to recognize what emotion you're feeling. The next step is to embrace and accept that you are the one who has to make that change. Now I'm gonna say one thing, if you're working in anger all the time working out of anger, constantly frustrated, you're not going to be progressive and make the changes you want. That's just how our minds are wired when you're stressed. So if you want to progress and move forward, if you don't want to feel angry all the time, you have to embrace that you are the one who is going to make that change, and be able to say I feel this now but that's not what I want to feel. So you have to embrace and accept that 1. it's okay to feel whatever you're feeling but 2. You, and you alone are in charge of changing that feeling. And we're going to talk about how to do that.
Shaye Koester 08:58
So for step three think about what thought your comes to your mind. When the equipment breaks down, when the cattle break through a fence when that calf died, I mean, when you're hired help doesn't show up for the day. Those are all tough circumstances and they suck. But what thought is coming to your mind, what actual thought are you telling yourself or are you thinking because that ultimately is dictating your emotion. And so, for example, say the yearlings take out a fence because they got spooked and it might not have been the best fence it might have been an older fence. If your initial thought is our operation is behind or are operation has crappy fences. Or we aren't enough because our yearlings are destroying the fences, whatever it may be. And that may not be at all what you're thinking. But those are negative thoughts, right? Those are thoughts that would evoke anger in your mind. So instead, that circumstance is still the same, that situation is still the same. The yearlings will always go through like the yearlings went through the fence, whatever, you can't change it, you're mad. But you can twist that thought into a more positive thought. Maybe it's now we can change that fence right away, like we needed to already. Or maybe it's, you know what, this is a great learning moment for my kids who are along.
Shaye Koester 10:53
So, you know, that's just one example. But it could be anything really. And so those are the kind of the three steps we talked about, recognize your current feeling or emotion, and embrace and accept that you are the one who has to change it. That was step two, because you're in charge. And step three was picking a thought and deciding how you're going to think about the circumstance differently to provide the feeling you want or emotion you want really. Now, that example I gave about yearlings going through the fence, maybe that didn't, maybe that wasn't quite what you were thinking. But that's just one example that you can use to think about. You really need to think about how you are motivated and what's going to motivate you. Because I'm going to be motivated by different things than you are. So it's really personal to you. But it all comes down to what thoughts you decide to put into your mind. And it's not something that comes right away. I worked with a mindset coach to help me do this. We worked together for months and I still catch myself putting negative thoughts in my mind. And that's something that will always happen. That's human nature. But on the flip side, I can catch myself and turn those negative thoughts into positive thoughts and push through certain situations. And so an example of that is back about seven or eight months ago, I was experiencing a lot of doubt and impostor syndrome being 22 in the ranching industry, in the podcast industry trying to build up what I was doing trying to create value for you all, I was experiencing a lot of doubt and impostor syndrome. And so if you're not familiar what impostor syndrome is, that's where you feel like an imposter in your own space. It's where you don't feel like you're actually good enough, you don't feel like you're actually making an impact, whatever it may be, there are a lot of negative thoughts telling you, you are telling yourself, I should say that you shouldn't be doing what you're doing. You're not worthy, you're not capable, whatever it may be. And so that's what I was kind of experiencing with this podcast. And what it ultimately came down to was, I didn't feel like I was making an impact on the beef industry. And that was a negative thought about that I was telling myself. So to overcome that, I started setting a reminder on my phone so that at noon every day, I have a reminder that pops up and says you are making a difference in the beef industry. And that's one way that I use that mindset shift. Now, obviously, that first initial thought about you're not making a difference in the beef industry, you're not making enough of an impact. That's not going to make me very happy. That's not going to make me want to push forward. It's not a good thing to be telling myself. But flipping that and saying, you are making a difference, you are making an impact you are connecting with people in the beef industry, that makes me feel positive, that makes me move forward. That makes me want to make the changes that I can. And I'm not saying that for you guys to start messaging me or anything like that. That's just me being real about the reality of owning a business. And it really doesn't matter what age you are. If you own a business, you're probably have experienced impostor syndrome at some point that it doesn't really go away. But that's just me being honest with like, the entrepreneurship side of things and how this mindset shift has helped there. Another way that I've used the mindset shift is if you get my newsletter you saw this in like, probably the June one of the June issues. But I learned this summer, how to row bales with our hay hiker. I had rowed bales with our tractor and payloader before but never used the hay hiker before. If you're curious about what that is basically it's like a long trailer that you pull behind the tractor. It's got a swing arm or a cradle. And it swings down, you drive up, pick up the bail, flip it over, have another bail, flip it over, and then push bar that pushes those bales back and you keep going. And so it just makes the process faster as opposed to just using a loader. I had never used one of those before. We got it when I was in junior high or high school, and that was always my grandfather's, sister, dad's job, I never had to use it, or got to run it. And I was pretty okay with that.
Shaye Koester 15:26
But this summer I had the opportunity and we needed someone to run it this year. And so now that I'm back, I ran it. And it was really rough. And I was unloading my first row of bales by myself. And my first initial thought was, these are crooked, I'm terrible at this. Dad and Grandpa are going to be ticked because we're all OCD and people can see it from the road. And I was just putting myself down. And I could feel myself tense up. And I could recognize that that was impacting how it was loading the rest of the bales. And the next load wasn't any better, because I had let my frustration get the best to me. And so by the time I had two unloaded, I told myself, okay, take a few deep breaths, you need to take a second to figure out how you can actually think about this. And I looked at the whole situation from the big picture. And it was that today, I learned a new skill. And, it's okay to grant myself grace, that there are mistakes, because I'm still better today than I was yesterday and I learned something new today that I didn't know yesterday. So then on the next row was a lot straighter, things looked better. So then that thought even, you know got better. And it was like you learned a new skill. And you're progressively getting better. And so that's just something that another example for how I've used it on the ranch in certain situations, you can use it however you want. But as we move forward with the tips as far as how to bring joy back into your life, or choose happiness, or trade out that anger and frustration so that you can feel that joy and enjoyment. One of the first tips I'm going to say is that that phone reminder, if it's kind of imposter syndrome or confidence related, if you're working on a big project, if you've just been busting your butt, or if it's a family transition, whatever it is, that's really kind of been weighing on your heart and mind that's kind of been impacting how you've been showing up to your ranch every day, set a reminder on your phone so that it goes off. And everyday you look at it. It's simple, it's easy, it's there. And it helps more than you realize if you take the five seconds to just read it. The next step, and I've brought this up before is gratitude. Each morning, you don't have to journal it, you don't have to write it down. I like to do it in the morning, you can do it whatever time you want in the day, write down three things you're grateful for. It's been brought up in episodes before. But gratitude is so life changing. Because it really makes you realize all the little things that count as blessings, even when everything else is going wrong. Find three little things that you can be grateful for that you can thank God for that you can thank your friends and family for. Right. And the final tip is reflection. I talked about this in my episode about how to start doing it all in one day. Reflection is key. In that episode, I talked about how I use my tractor time for reflection. But this is something that you can use, anytime it's important to reflect on it doesn't have to be like for long hours a day. Or like you know, you know it, I like to reflect a little every day, but it could be weekly, monthly, whatever it may be. But take time to think about how far you've come and how that's in line with your goals and what you can change to get there. Or, you know if that's ranch wise, great, but do it personally too, for whatever your personal goals are. So with that, as a kind of wrap up the three things the three steps to trading and frustration and anger for joy and enjoyment are to set that phone reminder with a positive thought for whatever is weighing on your heart and mind.
Shaye Koester 19:51
To say the three things you're grateful for every day, and to reflect because at the end of the day, everything is a journey and now not a destination. So slow down. Embrace that it's a journey. And take the time to shift your mindset so that you're having fun again and enjoying what you're doing. Because if you're passionate about something, I want you to enjoy it. I want you to enjoy your ranching, I want you to enjoy if you're in that place of life, where you are working multiple jobs and ranching. I want you to enjoy what you're doing. Because if you feel in your heart that you're truly passionate about it, but finding that you're dealing with a lot of anger, or in a place where maybe you don't want to be mad, start with your mind. You're in control of it. You get to decide if you want to do it. Those are my tips. I can't make you do it. But my challenge for you is to start off by thinking about maybe a circumstance or situation that didn't go the way you wanted and made you upset and how you could have rethought about that. That's my challenge for you today. Let me know your thoughts on the episode and take care.
Shaye Koester 21:07
And that's a wrap on that one. Be sure to let me know your thoughts on the episode and if you have any further questions around the topic, take care and have a great day.
