There are those seasons in life where you’re deep in survival mode. You know what I’m talking about right?
It’s the full-body experience. It’s consuming, exhausting, rewarding and exhilerating and it can go on like this for months or in our case a few years. Until something happens and you snap out of it.
This was how the first few years of farming felt for us. It took so much effort and patience and stamina to turn this vacant overgrown plot of land into the farm it is today. And it was only in the last year or two, that we’ve started finally coming up for air and finding our new equilibrium.
Over the past year, as we’ve continued on this journey, we’ve adopted some powerful habits that have shifted everything for us. And we wanted to share them with you this week!
1. We took the cell phones, chargers, and all screens out of the bedroom. They say sleep is one of the most important things you can do for your health. And we’ve found this to be true. We’re going to bed earlier, sleeping more soundly and waking up more well-rested.
2. We’re still writing our gratitude lists every night before bed. I don’t know if this happens to you, but my brain tends to focus on the scary or stressful things happening on the farm or around the world. Finding 10 positives, writing them down, and celebrating them every night (sometimes we do this in the morning, too), changes that engrained brain chemistry. And I swear, we’re happier because of it.
3. We sit down at the start of the week and we schedule. In addition to reviewing all the big things happening on the farm, we plan out meals for most nights and we decide who’s doing the cooking. We decide when we’re going to our weekly yoga class and when we’re working on the newsletter. We schedule our days off and lately, we’ve been trying to add in a weekly date night. We’ve found that when its on the schedule, it’s 100x more likely to happen, so we’re making a point to schedule ALL the things that are really important to us.
Bonus Habit #4. We wake up an hour earlier almost every day. We kept saying we wanted (or needed) more time in the day for ourselves. And we found it! By waking up an hour earlier (4:45 instead of 5:45) we are able to take time for ourselves BEFORE we take care of the animals or tackle to the t0-do list. This feels amazing.
As you probably realize by now, these aren’t new concepts. They’re well known strategies that people like Oprah and Brene Brown and Rachel Hollis share about all the time. But they’ve become our habits now too and the results we’ve had in our own lives have been amazing.
We’re sharing them with you this week in hopes that maybe one or more of them might resonate with you. If it does, follow that instinct and give it a try, especially if you’re in one of those more challenging seasons of life. Maybe committ for a week or two and see what shows up! And please do let us know how the journey goes!
Your Farmers,
Jenney & Greg