We moved my horse to a new stall on Sunday. The new stall allows her to be on turn out all the time. Before I had to pay one of the guys to let her out and that meant she didn’t get out on weekends. Now she gets out every day, it also means change which my horse HATES. She is next to 2 mares and they don’t seem to like her either. None of this is helping.
On Sunday she was nervous, pacing, pawing, not eating. When I walked away she calmed down. Yesterday she was better until I put her in the cross ties, she was terrible. Jumpy, nervous not wanting to stand still. I moved her over to where her buddy was and she was yawning (which means she’s totally relaxed).
So now I feel terrible, did I make the wrong choice, should I move her back and how the heck am I going to handle her being so nuts again. I felt defeated! Like I should just give up and let her go back to where she was before.
I told my daughter that I felt sad and upset that we had done this and that I felt like I had taken 10,000 steps back. She reminded me that I only took 1 step back that she was still amazing in the arena, she stood in the other cross ties and that we had to make her new home one where she wanted to be. She essentially talked me off the ledge.
This morning I started thinking again about this mountain that I now feel like I have to climb. I wondered as leaders, how often do we see a task or person or whatever as a mountain that we just can’t seem to get up. Do we give up on that mountain or do we stop and assess exactly where we need to be. Do we need to get all the way to the other side of the mountain or can we simply make it to a certain point?
So often as leaders we feel that we must get all the way across in that moment instead of saying I just need to take a step forward.
Today I am going to take a step forward and get my horse to stand. Tomorrow we’ll take another step but today we are simply moving forward!
Here’s to all my leaders! Take a single step, you don’t have to get to the top today! You just have to move forward!!
Leadership Simplified 