The Mindful Rancher

What are ways we could live into our bucket lists more? We often will only put big things on our bucket lists but consider the idea of creating a little things bucket list. A list of your favorite moments that you would love to live over and over a again and then taking the time to create opportunity to do so. Our bucket lists can also limit our dreams to only the things on the list so leaving some empty space can create opportunity for the magic that we haven't been able to dream up yet.

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It's interesting to see how different animals interact with the world around them and then see what wisdom we can apply to ourselves. I had an opportunity to attend a horse wisdom group therapy session and this episode is just a few of my observations and lessons learned.

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Why do you do things the way you do them? Is it because it's just always been done that way? Sometimes it's good for us to question the things that we do and the way that we do them. I was recently inspired by some dairy farmers who were running their farms differently than what would be considered the industry norm. What things do you need to do differently?

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What would improve if you did less, excluded something, or got rid of something? We are often so focused on addition - having more, doing more, or being included in more that we forget that sometimes more isn't better. Less is.

How could we practice subtraction to improve our lives?

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What are your values? What are the values of the company? How do you live those values? How do you not live into those values?

When we can provide concrete examples of how we live our values and how we do not live the values we want to. It can help us to not only say we have certain values but to actually practice them.

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How can we build stress reducing and releasing practices into our every day life? Simple things like delegating tasks, going for a walk, or simply standing when you do a task, can help us have a little less stress. What do you want to try to reduce stress today?

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What happens when a kid doesn't have the emotional skills to face a challenging experience? They will often react negatively - screaming, yelling, or crying. What happens when an adult doesn't have the emotional skills to face a challenging experience? They react.

Developing emotional skills is the key. First, we see that we react in situations in ways that we don't want to. Then we start practicing the emotional skills that might help us in the future.

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We do 100's of things a day, but what are the things that make it easy to feel good? Do we feel good after a night out with friends? Do we feel good after going for a run? Do we feel good when we hit snooze and can sleep in a little? Do we feel good when we are running late?

It is easy to get caught doing things that pass the time or distract us but what would our lives be like if we did more of the things that help us to feel good?

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What happens after you take the action you want to take as you create a habit? You may not think that what happens after matters but it does. When we take action and are punished for it, we are not likely to do it again. When we take action and we are rewarded for it, we are much more likely to do it again. If you want to create a new habit, make sure you create a reward.

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So often we are just not aware of the things we are thinking or the things we are doing. But once we become aware then we have the choice to change it. One simple practice to increase awareness is to write down a page of thoughts every day. This gives us perspective on the things we are thinking and ultimately allows us to choose to keep that pattern of thinking or to change it.

What will you choose?

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What can help us create balance? Sometimes choosing to have less or do less can be the boundaries we need to bring control and balance back into our lives. Though many of our workplaces are quite resistant to boundaries there still may be ways to set limits that help us have the life we truly want.

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What do you do when you just can't seem to stick with your goals consistently? What can we do when things just seem too big to actually do them?

One trick is to make them smaller and just do the small thing. When we lower our expectations, when we lower the time commitment, when we simply lower the bar we can get the success that fuels motivation for consistent action. Where do you need to just lower the bar?

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What do you do when you send a message and no one responds? What do you make that mean about yourself and the other person?

It is easy to think that not responding caries a lot of meaning but it is also possible to think that it doesn't carry a lot of meaning - it just means they didn't respond. What meaning do you think you want to give to someone's lack of response?

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We all recycle thoughts. Our grandparents thought it, our parents think it, and now so do we. This recycling often makes our thinking quite stable. It is efficient for our brains and creates the same results over and over again. But what we miss sometimes is that our thinking is also plastic. It can change with new information or it can change because we choose to change it. How would you like to change your thinking?

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Reflecting back on situations of the past can help us decide if we want to create similar things in the future or if we want to respond differently in the future. Sometimes we can use reflection as a way to shame our past selves some how believing that we should have handled the situation differently but that is seldom useful as we cannot change the past. But consider reflection from the perspective of informing that future. See what we did in the past and make a decision to practice something different in the future.

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Some failure is blameworthy some failure is praiseworthy and some it is a little hard to tell which it is. But how we interpret failure will affect how we act toward ourselves and others when they fail. In this episode, we explore the spectrum of the causes of failure and our tendency to see failure as blameworthy.

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Do we set big goals or do we set little ones? We know goals help us accomplish more but sometimes we need to adjust how we set goals to have the greatest impact and the most success. What kind of goals do you want to set this year or maybe just this week.

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At the end of the year it's fun to look back on all the things you have accomplished - this year, the past few years, and maybe even an over view of your life. This year as you think back on your accomplishments think about what a younger version of you would think about these things. We all have accomplished things that our younger self couldn't have even dreamed of. Let's be in awe of those things.

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What if you believed that there was nothing wrong with you? Nothing wrong with where you are at? Nothing wrong with where you have been in the past?

We often think that we have to believe that there is something wrong to make a change. But what if we could believe that there was nothing wrong and still make changes?

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As you looked for blind spots after last week's episode or thought about people at their best, did you sometimes struggle to find a moment to share?

That might be because our brains are a bit biased toward the negative. But one concept that I love is that weaknesses are sometimes strengths overused. So in the negative moment or the weakness that you identified can you see the strength that was overused?

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When we drive we have blind spots and as we navigate our lives we will have blind spots. Most of us think we only have blind spots when it comes to our weaknesses but sometimes we are even blind to our strengths. Listen as we explore three exercises where others help us to see our strengths, we help others see their strengths or we explore the thoughts that create the most fun and have us perform at our best.

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What roles have you taken on? What roles have some of your different parts taken on? Have we got the right person or the right part in the right role?

The roles that are assigned to us and the roles that we assign to ourselves or our parts sometimes are just not the right fit. Getting a good fit with the roles that you have or that your parts have can make all the difference.

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We all have parts. Parts of us that get angry. Parts of us that are happy-go-lucky. Parts of us that are sad. Parts of us that are lonely. Some parts of ourselves we love and we believe that they are good. Other parts we might dislike or be ashamed of and believe that they are bad. What would happen if we listened to, embraced, and loved all the parts of ourselves?

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What are you practicing? I like to think of practicing as the things that I am doing over and over again whether I fail or succeed at them. It's interesting to see what we practice and then choose to practice the things that help us develop into the person we want to be.

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How many decisions do you make in a day? If you feel like taking on an exhausting project you can count but if not you can believe me, it is a lot. Each task we do, we make a decision to do it. As a result of the number of decisions that we have to make we can fall into decision fatigue.

So what can you do. The simple practice of making decisions ahead of time can help reduce the decisions and open up space for us to think about other things. What decisions could you make ahead of time?

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What are the things that you delight in? What are the things that bring you delight? How often do you feel delighted?

The world has many challenges and many delights. We sometimes forget to focus on the delights. Spend some time this week focusing on the things that bring you delight.

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What are the things you need to figure out? What are the things you never need to figure out? I was recently given permission to not figure something out. It felt amazing. The freedom, the creativity, the fun, came back into my life. There are a lot of things we can and will figure out. But there are somethings that are just not our responsibility to understand nor figure out. Let's let those things go.

Meditation. There are many types of mediation. There are many ways to meditate. There are many benefits of meditation. Join me for one of my favorite meditations: Loving kindness.

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What would you do with an extra 3 hours? We spend approximately 3 hours every day thinking about past conversations. Our brains think this rumination will some how help us but so often it has us reliving hard experiences of the past or living through things that will actually never happen in the future.

Let's find a way to claim these 3 hours back to the present moment.

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Do you like receiving feedback? Do you like giving feedback? Feedback is simply a point of view so let's take the time to consider the point of view. Looking back on the past can provide some powerful insights into changes that we want to make in the future. But a past-focused view sometimes gets us stuck in shame and regret. Consider the idea of reframing your feedback into feedforward and describe how you would like the future to be instead of dwelling on the past.

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How often do you do the things that you tell others you will do?

How often do you do the things you tell yourself you will do?

Honoring our commitments to ourselves is a powerful tool for building self-trust.

Let's just start small and start doing the things we tell ourselves we will do.

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Why do you do things? What is the explanation that you give to others when they object to your choices? Do you like the reason that you give? Sometimes we find ourselves giving reasons for our choices that will feel out of alignment. It's often fun to explore these situations and simply ask yourself - what is the real reason?

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What do you do when things feel out of alignment? Just like your wheel alignment on your car things are not going smoothly and things are starting to wear.

Normally we might try to just carry on, avoid the discomfort, or to try and make a massive change. But what we tried first was to do a little exploring. Simply feeling the emotions that come up with the situation and gaining a little understanding can work wonders for helping us create the change that will serve us best.

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Shedding is just part of life. Our pets shed their winter coats so why shouldn't we be shedding old ideas to allow our lives to be better and move forward. Ideas have a powerful effect on our lives and if we are not constantly evaluating them, old ideas from our past can start to negatively effect our present and our future. What ideas are no longer serving you that you need to shed?

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How much time do you spend dealing with things that go wrong?

How much time do you spend helping things go right?

We will all have to deal with things when they go wrong and there is often something that will go wrong. But what if we started spending more time helping things go right? Time training, preparing, building relationships, and getting things done early. What would be the impact for you if you carved out more time to help things go right?

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Resources. We all have experienced times when it seems that we just don't have enough to do all the things that we would like to do. So how do you decide what to put your resources into: do you work on your strengths? do you work on your weaknesses? What if it depended on the game you were playing? In some cases, it might be more advantageous to put resources into your strengths, and in other cases, we must work on our weaknesses. Simply understanding the game or business we are in helps us utilize the resources that we have to get the greatest return.

When you are going through something hard what kind of support do you need?

Do you need someone to witness your struggle? Stay with you, support you, but still allow you to figure it out.

Do you need someone to help you? Step in, do some of the work, take something off your plate.

Do you need someone to offer you a distraction? Crack a joke, go for a walk with you, offer an alternative activity to take your mind off the problem.

In each situation, the thing that we need may be different and we can ask do you need a witness, help, or a distraction.

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How can we make dreams come true? We all have dreams but sometimes when they start to come true we find out that they feel a little uncomfortable. One way to increase our chances of our dreams coming true is to start to become familiar with how they will feel when they come true. An easy way to do this is to visit your dreams or touch your dreams often. Create moments or days where you experience the life you would live if your dream came true.

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There are always two conversations going on.

The one that is happening between you and another person.

And the one that is happening inside your brain.

Those two conversations don't always match. Usually, the one inside your brain is much more dramatic and sometimes even more interesting.

But the most important part is to become aware of both. See what conversations you want to participate in and see what conversations you no longer want part of your life.

You can choose.

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Have you ever noticed that sometimes we remember the same event in different ways? Have you ever noticed that at one time you remember something one way and later you seem to recall something different? This is just how our memories work. They are not like an instant replay in sports, they are much more fluid than that and therefore a bit more fallible. Recognizing this can feel make things feel very uncertain but it also can give us the freedom to let others recount past events differently and have confidence in ourselves that we don't need to prove our recollection is correct, we simply accept that memories are different and can be influenced by so many things. It may make it feel a bit uncomfortable at first but it also opens so many opportunities for curiosity.

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To continue our discussion from last week on a few more lessons I have learned from a funeral. It is so interesting that we only get to know a snapshot of each other's lives. This opens the door for us to learn from each other and be more curious instead of being judgmental when our reactions or actions are different. We also will each be faced with our own challenges and sometimes it helps me to simply consider that I am up for the challenge and only challenges that I can handle will come my way. Sometimes a simple change in perspective will help us through any challenge that comes our way.

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A recent funeral taught me a few lessons.

Lesson 1: We have a tendency of focusing on the bad that people do and forgetting to tell all the good stories. Yet our memories for the good are much better at a funeral so what if we tried to tell more of the good stories and let the negative ones not be told as often?

Lesson 2: Dreams come true. We all have dreams and some of them will come true. Don't forget to remember the ones that do and enjoy them.

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Have you ever had a simple moment feel amazing? Have you ever had a grand moment feel horrible? What caused the difference? It's fun to explore what makes moments feel different. Once we can identify the moments that feel like gold, we can make sure we carve out time to create more of them to have a life that feels amazing. So often we chase the next promotion, the next grand adventure, or the next applause but really all we want are the simple moments that feel like gold. How can you create more of those moments in your life?

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We know we need boundaries but why is setting them so hard? One thing that makes setting boundaries hard is the timing. When we are upset we have the motivation to set them but we also aren't thinking as clearly as we are when we are calm. So when setting boundaries, watch your timing and pay attention to your emotions. With a little bit of awareness, we can take the time to intentionally set boundaries that are loving for ourselves as well as loving for others.

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Have you ever wondered if you needed to set a boundary? Have you ever had one friend telling you that you were taking on too much while another person kept expecting more? Sometimes it's tough to know when to set a boundary but there are a few things that we can use as cues. Feelings of resentment, taken advantage of, or desperation are some good indicators that we can use to know that we might need to set a boundary.

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One simple way to think about boundaries. What is my responsibility? What are the things I need to take ownership of? What is not my responsibility? What is not mine to take ownership of? Defining ourselves helps us develop the identity that gives us the safe structure to consider things from another's perspective without getting lost in or having to agree. Considering another's experience allows us to act with empathy.

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Have you ever struggled to make and keep a boundary with work, family, or friends? Boundaries are tough for many reasons. We often do not want to disappoint others or lose out on opportunities so we say yes to everything. But without boundaries, we are not taking care of ourselves and then we lose the ability to take care of others.

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How much of your life is chaos? How much of your life is calm?

We watch a lot of perfect, edited, and performed things on TV and on social media and it is easy to think that our lives should work like a perfect performance. But most of the time our lives are not a performance, they are a raw, poorly timed, and real experience. Our thinking can affect how we embrace the chaos of real life. If we think thoughts that leave us with the expectation that things should be perfect then we will struggle with the realness of life. So just becoming aware of these can help us accept the chaos and not feel the need to perform all the time.

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Our breathing automatically adjusts to our different emotional states. So if we are angry our breathing will often be different than when we are calm. But though many of these changes are automatic we also have the power to consciously change our breathing. There are many different breathing patterns that you can try including SHHH breath, soup breath, and box breath. Give them a try and see which ones bring you calmness.

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When you spill a cup of water - the water spills out. When you spill a cup of tea - the tea spills out. It's always whatever is in the cup that spills out. We too fill our minds with ideas, stories, and emotions. When a challenge comes our way, these are the things that spill out. What are you filling your life with? What is spilling out?

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