Take care of yourself so you can take care of your farm

Family farm coach’s advice at EO Crops Day

Article from the Agri-News March 2007

Elaine Froese talks at EO Crop Days

KEMPTVILLE - In the middle of a busy day filled with seminars dealing with everything from grain grading to nitrogen management in corn, Elaine Froese, a family farm business coach from Boissevain, Manitoba, encouraged farmers to take time out of their busy lives to do something good for themselves.

With so many pressures facing farmers from every direction, it is easy to lose sight of the importance of health, happiness and positive relationships, and Froese, the keynote speaker at the Eastern Ontario Crop Conference February 22 at the Kemptville Campus of the University of Guelph, reminded producers to 'Take Five' to renew themselves.

Froese, who crops 3,500 acres with her husband for their certified seed business, says it is important for farmers to figure out what they really want and to go after it.

Farmers face many pressures in their lives, including unaffordable lifestyle pressures, keeping their problems secret, being busy with community commitments, juggling off- and on-farm work, fear of forced exit and fragmented family life among others.

In the face of these pressures, it is easy to get discouraged, but Froese reminded Crop Conference participants that they can only fix themselves.

'I don’t put up with whining, and I don’t put up with victimization,' she said. 'Even in the tough times, what can you really fix' Only you.'

Froese believes it is very important to take time out to relax, reflect and recharge; this will improve not only your health, but also your frame of mind and the lives of those around you.

'Guys, you are not a machine,' she said. 'Not paying attention (to illness or symptoms) is not going to help yourself, and it fragments your family life when you keep going and going.'

Froese encouraged everyone to think about what a really good day looks like to them. If you don’t know what a really good day looks like, you are working too hard.

'When you can define (what a really good day looks like), you can go after it,' she said. 'If you don’t know what a good day looks like, very soon, your body is going to tell you what a good day does not look like. Each of us is responsible for defining what a good day looks like.'

Froese says farmers are juggling themselves, their marriages or relationships, their farms, their communities and their friends every day, and sometimes, they need to learn to drop some of those balls to lighten the load.

'You are responsible for deciding what you will take on and what you will give up,' she said. 'Give yourself permission to relax. You will kill yourself if you don’t, and you won’t make good farm management decisions if you are depressed...When we feel so beat up and run down, we can’t come up with creative new ways to do business and to have fun.'

In order to live a healthy, balanced life, Froese says farmers need to 'Take Five' to relax and renew. Sleeping, healthy snacking, having fun, fighting well, encouraging your heart, kissing, tracking plans, taking care of your body, saying 'no, not at this time,' pausing and serving others are all ways people can help themselves.

During her lively presentation, Froese told producers conflict sucks the energy out of us, and often that conflict derives from ignoring the bull in the middle of the room that everybody knows about but doesn’t want to talk about and from keeping our problems bottled up inside. She encourages everyone to 'discuss the undiscusabull' with the people they love in order to solve these problems and move forward.

'Every day to me is a gift,' she said. 'I’m not going to let all that energy be sucked out of me; I’m going to talk about it.'

Froese says 'time is the commodity of 2007 that everybody wants but nobody gets,' and it is important to use your time in ways that are positive and that help you live a happier, more fulfilling life. Decide what you are going to hold on to, what you are going to let go of, what you will take on, and what you can learn and unlearn. And make sure you take time to take care of yourself because if you can’t take care of yourself, it is harder and harder to take care of your family and of your farm.

'If you really love your family, you will take care of you, not only for you, but also for your family,' Froese said.

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