How to do it with success

Everyone who has these portable money eaters, AKA Horses and Ponies, knows we need a substantial amount of money to cover all their bills, vets, livery, feed, lessons the list goes on, and a substantial amount of time! At some stage, we’ve all had the “ horse guilt” of not getting time to go to see our four-legged friends or not getting to ride.

But what if I told you I hold the secret to success in work-life-horse balance?

I don’t think many would believe me, but from having to balance so much and also having my HR degree to guide me I was able to develop what’s needed to ensure it works for every horse person of any level or discipline and it’s the key thing I ensure with all my clients.

I have had horses a long time all through school, university, work, my own business running alongside, competing, training with my coach, qualifying as a coach, and seeing my very patient other half, friends and family,but I seemed to get these constant questions …

How do I find time to do anything?

How do I get good grades and results?

How do I not neglect anything or anyone?

Would you not sell your horses so you have more free time, you never come out anymore?

You always with your horse does your other half not mind?

I think we have all heard the above at some point in our lives and usually, we either get extreme Horse Guilt or feel awful for forgetting something to do with work or family and friends instead of organising our day.

Here are my top tips to work-life-horse balance

Get a diary Use your phone or a book to write down your week or month ahead, what time you are at work, college, school etc, and identify free time. Usually, there is a morning, afternoon, or evening slot that you may not be able to see as your head is full of OMG I have no time for anyone.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail This phrase is super important and ensures nothing gets neglected. Be organised, write in your diary what you have to do, for example:

• 9am to 5pm Work – I have 1hr for lunch I can meet a friend for lunch or do a video lunch with them to catch up.
• 5.30pm Dinner – Try to eat your dinner for lunch or do meal prep on the weekends so that it cuts down on the time needed to cook and also helps you choose healthier options.
• 6pm to 8pm Yard – Plan your exercise you wish to accomplish and bring a friend or share an exercise to help with setting up and taking down equipment.
• 8.30pm – Go home, shower.
• 9pm – See your other half, phone a friend, or do household chores.
• 10.30pm Bedtime – Make sure you’re getting adequate sleep and self-care.

Track your time Make sure you don’t go over the time for each item in your diary, no working late. Believe it or not, no employment can ever force you to work late and if they do they are not thinking of your overall health and not respecting you as a staff member. Working late should always be organised in advance and rewarded by time in lieu and shouldn’t ever determine who should get a promotion.

Determine your priorities Who you need to see, what you need to get done and how you’re going to do it.

Goal Setting A key item for any success is goal setting and they don’t need to be huge goals. For example, my goal for this month is to increase my horse’s suppleness. How am I going to do it? Lots of no stirrup work, lots of transitions and encourage him to go long and low as much as possible.

Weekends are a little bit easier to manage as you have the full day, but they should also be planned, for example, Competition in Joe blogs equestrian centre starts 10am and I need to be home by lunchtime so I can see my friends or family in the evening.

School and University are slightly different as the times are not always fixed, but the process still applies – Be organised. My parents when I was in school or university had a rule, my assignments can’t suffer because of my horse and my horse cannot suffer because of school or university. So I planned that all could be looked after – I would come home from school or university, get the majority if not all of my tasks completed and then go to the yard or alternatively, I would go to the yard and work after depending on what needed to be done.

The last item that you need in order to make work-life-horse balance be a success is to have a great support network.

• Make sure you are in a livery yard that can look after your horse when you are not there and have a plan with the yard manager if you can’t make it up. Or if you have your own yard, employ a yard hand to help with yard tasks to free up more time.
• Involve the family – teach them the basics – skipping/mucking out, picking feet, feeding, haying and watering – it solves the problem if you are on DIY and also it gets them involved in your passion and it can become a shared passion as a result.

• Team up with yard friends who will check your horse and in turn you can do it for them – it’s a win-win when building exercises.
• Involve your work in your horse life – I had my managers and teams, when I worked in HR, very involved in my horse endeavours……. if I won a competition they all knew, if I had a bad session they all knew, if I was going somewhere that involved horses you bet they knew about it and at one stage a colleague said “ Okay we get it, a horse is just like having a child “ and I was lucky I had very flexible work arrangements so it made attending horse appointments easier and I found the more upfront I was about my commitments, the more understanding I got from my managers and colleagues.

And ………….

Remember this is our passion and our hobby and we need to be fully relaxed when we see our four-legged money eaters, so plan to succeed don’t plan to fail and once you do that you will always succeed.