Find More Horse Time!

Real Life Situations:

Creative Solutions: Find More Horse Time!
When I get together with a person, I always begin with asking them how it has been going since the last time I worked with them. And quite often the first thing I hear is, “I just haven’t had enough time to work with my horse. “
I do sympathize with them, because I realize how busy everyone seems to be these days. It can be frustrating to realize a month has gone by and you haven’t had time to do anything with your horse except feed him.

FIND MORE TIME BEHIND THE INVISIBLE FENCE!
Since time seems to be such a big obstacle I hear from so many horse lovers about why they can’t seem to progress as much as they would like with their horse I decided to share some creative solutions with all of you that I hope will help you find more time with your horse.

I'll bet you've heard of invisible fences (mainly for dogs), but you haven't seen one, have you? I know I have not ever seen one, but I have heard of them and some people have told me how well they work.

A person can see the components which make up this fence; like, wire and transmitters, but it is impossible to see the finished product. What we do see is the result of the invisible fence, which is the constant confinement of a dog in his yard. The dog respects the perimeter of the invisible fence even when other animals, objects or natural instincts may tempt him to leave. The invisible fence does its job establishing boundaries the dog will not cross.
It must be challenging to sell a product that no one can see. Instead of selling the product you have to sells its results. The results are the ability to keep your dog contained within an invisible perimeter. I'm sure you'll agree that boundaries are important in your life especially when you want your privacy and time respected. We could go on and on about boundaries that we have to establish in relationships especially with our horses. However, I am going to try to stay on point and talk about this problem of not enough time to spend with your horse in order to make the progress you desire.

Unfortunately, sometimes others don't respect the boundaries you want to establish in your business and personal lives especially when it comes to time. Have you ever noticed how the many people in your life have an unlimited amount of requests to make of you and your time? Wouldn't it be wonderful to have your own personal "invisible fence" to turn on and off whenever you needed to protect your horse time. Your invisible fence would allow you to get more done in less time without offending the time robbers in your life. Your message to others is that they are still very important to you, that you desire to be there for them, and that you are not inaccessible, but that you aren't always accessible on demand at any given moment.

How do you create your own invisible fence and get more horse time?

• Let voice mail answer the phone (and cell phone) for an hour or two. In fact you will find that I don’t answer my phone very often. But those who call me are very pleasantly surprised that I always call you back as soon as I can. Remember if the message is urgent, it will get to you. Disrupting your activity to accommodate a ringing phone costs you more time than you think when you consider the time for the call in addition to getting back on track with the project at hand. I never answer my cell phone when I am working with my horses or clients, they both deserve my undivided attention.
• Limit computer and TV time. It is unbelievable how much time can be sucked up by chat groups, e-mails, and TV programs. I try to be as efficient as possible in answering e-mails, and sometimes it is a better use of my time to call people to answer their questions instead of typing a book. I also try to only look at my e-mails once or twice a day max. And some days I even skip it, however, I work hard at being timely to reply, especially to clients. I don’t spend time any more reading all the cute jokes etc. I just can’t possibly keep up. I like our yahoo chat group and the support it provides the horse people who have taken lessons from me, so I keep up with it as best I can. However, I only look at other chat groups on occasion when I feel I can spare a few minutes, which isn’t very often. As for TV, there aren’t too many programs on these days I am all that interested in watching anyway. So I can live without it, and in fact I did for over 10 years. Not even one in the house. However, I think my hubby would have severe withdrawals without one.
• Get out of the mainstream, especially if you board your horse. I don’t mean you need to snub everyone. I think you will find it helpful to retreat to a more isolated area of the barn now and again to work with your horse in order to avoid so many interruptions and distractions. I live by a busy highway, and my arena is visible to drivers by. I often have people stop to visit for various reasons. Sometimes it is even strangers, curious about what I am doing. If I really need some time alone with a certain horse without interruptions for a short period, I go out back behind the trees in the pasture where I am invisible to passers by. I’m not being rude, rather I just want to focus on the horse and our relationship for a quality period of time. Kind of like shutting the bathroom door. If I’m out in the arena by the road, I’m polite to a friendly visit over the fence and realize I am open to that when I put myself in that area of my property. In other words my invisible fence is off or on depending on the location I choose to work in.
• Get Away! Leave the barn or your property for a few hours. You might not even have to trailer if you live in a rural area. Go to a nearby field, park, arena. Any location away from your other distractions that may keep you from quality time with your horse: like (the tank, tack, stalls, pens, need cleaned; the fence, roof, or a number of other things need repaired; the weeds, trees, shrubs, or lawn, need trimmed, etc. etc. etc.) You get the drift. Take a cell phone, laptop, a yellow pad to a library, the park, or a coffee shop where you can set goals and create a plan to keep yourself on track with your . You can often get a lot more done off premise.
• Establish a practice of an early start to your day. Get to your barn a half hour or more before the rest of the crowd arrives so you have the quality time we spoke about in #3. Developing some kind of a workable schedule will help you find more time with your horse. Just like a person schedules a yoga class, bowling league, church, etc. if you schedule a time for your horse, it will be more likely that you will keep the date. The people in WY have a natural horsemanship club, and they schedule regular meetings, play days and trail rides. See if you can find some like minded people to meet with on a regular basis. It helps to keep everyone more accountable. My Mom has been playing bridge on Wed. night with the same group of gals for over 30 years. I just know that I can’t ask her to do anything on Wed. nights because she plays bridge and I respect her time.
• Establish a practice of getting enough sleep. After attending one of my horsemanship camps, many of the people call me the “Ever Ready Energizer Bunny”. When I was in WY in Aug. I gave lessons from 8:00 am until 8:00 pm everyday without a break. Alyce brought me a sandwich out for lunch which I gobbled down as I taught a lesson. However, you can bet that by 10:00 pm I was sound asleep in my little bunkhouse, ensuring at least 8 hours every night. I would not have been able to keep up the pace without enough sleep.
• Get into the habit of saying No immediately to people who want you to do things that don't make sense to your business plan or to your personal plan. You don’t have to say Yes, to every request. It won’t make you less popular, accessible, or approachable. It will empower you to follow your values and develop even deeper relationships when boundaries are respected. No is the switch that will turn your invisible fence on to protect your boundaries.
  

I am not trying to lecture anyone by writing this article, nor am I trying to make anyone adapt to the principles that I live by, but these things seem to work for me. When I bend the rules of any of these seven solutions for very long, I find I don’t have enough quality time with my horses. I do have to be fairly disciplined when I am at home because of the amount of time I spend on the road. I hope you will be thinking of other ways to create your private invisible fence to protect others from intruding in your personal back yard. And if you come up with some other solutions that work for you, I would love to hear them.