Gillian Warner returns, bringing us along for the ride as she strikes out on her own to launch her business as a professional. You can catch up on more installments from this series here.
Hello again – it’s been a while! I finally carved out a moment to write, and while I’ve often told myself I was just too busy, I’ve come to realize I was also avoiding it. This summer has been full and fast-paced, which made it easy to feel stretched thin and short on reflective space – something essential for writing.
Getting caught in that loop – where fatigue dims creativity and makes it harder to recharge through joyful plans – is a challenge. But I’m working on breaking through it, slowly but surely. And even just sitting down to write this feels like a step in the right direction.
The beginning of this summer brought some very exciting moments: I graduated with my Graduate Certificate in Applied Animal Behavior from the University of Washington, a number of horse and rider partnerships were going so well and aiming for some great summer goals, I started writing a book (more on that to come over the next few months!) and I had a full line up of cool horses with which to work, a full lesson schedule, and extra summer camps on top of that! It was a perfect lineup for a wonderfully horsey summer… truly living out my Saddle Club dreams.
But every horse person recognizes how quickly the schedule is eaten up. Without much time left over to sit, rest, or recharge through other (off the farm) activities, burn out creeps in without much notice. One day, you just notice the routine becoming a bit more monotonous, you feel a bit shorter and more tense, the exciting plans feel like a bit more effort to carry out… and you realize – the burn out is there. As the business gets increasingly busy, and you love what you do, the first thing to go is the space for yourself to accommodate expansion.
Being able to recognize and name it is helpful. Initially, I just tried to push through… it’s easy to have that mentality when you’re surrounded by your passion every day! I would set my alarm for earlier, to push myself to get going sooner… until I just snoozed my alarm, and then was more frustrated with myself for not feeling as driven and as much of a go getter as I typically am. My mindset to push through only drained me more!
It wasn’t working, and I knew I wanted something to change. It sounds basic, but I started by listening to my body more – I gave myself that extra hour of sleep, and held time to actually sit down to eat lunch, every day. I encouraged myself to find opportunities to get off of the farm, meeting up with non-horsey friends to diversify my conversation and interactions.
As my body felt increasingly rested, and my mind cleared, I then tried to hold space and time to day dream. What are the goals that I want to be working towards? What brings me joy and fun? If money were no object, what would I do, where would I go?
Holding this space to really allow myself to dive into the dream was challenging – more so than holding the space for meeting my basic needs. Luckily, I have a great team around me to hold me accountable for finding and creating that excitement for myself. My mom videoed my rides so I could see the progress. My dad helped scout out new trail rides to take my young horse on, and ensure adequate parking was available. My boyfriend asked me about my most memorable rides, hearing about my stories in Mongolia and Patagonia, and sending me unique places around the world to get me curious and exploring. The team at the barn worked alongside me to bring in clinic opportunities to our community.
With rest, and space to dream, I once again started creating new opportunities: new trails to explore with friends, trips for long training weekends, organized clinics and barn potlucks…
It’s easy to get feeling stuck in the day to day, especially as things get busy. The routine becomes so set, because it works – it lets you get through the day, and check everything off the list. But it doesn’t let you experience the day. And when the focus is on crossing things off the list, you lose that presence, curiosity, and excitement that I find critical for a fulfilling day, and an ever developing education and experience.
So here I am, pushing myself to write this to you all… to hopefully encourage some people to break out of their routine to push through the burn out to take care of and create excitement for themselves… but I’m also writing this for myself. It would have been easier to not hold the space to write: I could have fit in an extra ride, finished my scheduling for the week, cleaned my truck, or done anything else. My day could have been “done” an hour earlier. But I love to write, and it encourages me to be thoughtful in my life, so I created and held this space in my schedule.
Here’s to embracing the experience of each day, continued adventures, and space for ourselves to rest, question, and explore as we love what we do.
