Episode 17- Coming Back to You: Why Your Land Management Won’t Thrive Until You Include Yourself In It.

Are you doing all the things—rotating pastures, planting cover crops, attending workshops, watching YouTube—and still not seeing the progress you hoped for?

In this episode, we continue the theme from Episode 16 and explore a powerful truth: you can’t thrive as a land steward if you’re not part of your own management plan.

Whether you’re a new steward overwhelmed by advice or a seasoned one stuck in the same cycles, this conversation is an invitation to come back to yourself. Your values. Your goals. Your reality.

I share personal stories of burnout, disassociation, and even the hard decision to end a marriage—all rooted in the journey of aligning my life and land management with who I truly am.

When we don’t include ourselves in our management, we lose the creativity, clarity, and confidence needed to truly thrive.

Tune in to reclaim your power, your vision, and your rightful place at the center of your stewardship.

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If this resonates, and you’re feeling scattered, burned out, or unsure of your next step—I’d love to chat.

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Let's make regenerative ranching and farming more intentional, profitable, and fulfilling. I’d love to hear your biggest takeaway from this episode—DM me on Instagram or schedule a call to chat about it!

Connect with Christine Martin:
Website: https://thrivinglandsteward.com
Email: info@thrivinglandsteward.com

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the regenerative agriculture, thriving as a modern rancher, the podcast for ranchers and land stewards looking to build healthy land, profitable businesses, and a fulfilling life. Join us as we explore regenerative practices and holistic management to help you thrive in today's ranching world.

Christine Martin: 0:19

Hello, it's Christine here and for this episode I want to continue on the same theme as episode 16, which is about including yourself in your management. In recent weeks, I have consulted with many land stewards on their land on an onsite consultation. And I facilitated some workshops where I seem to be spending a lot of time asking the land steward to share with me what they value, what they want for their life on the land, and what their challenges are. And it appears to all boil down to one thing. They're so concerned with the land and the finances that they're forgetting to pay attention to themselves. I am seeing a lot of new land stewards who love being on the land, but are completely scattered about all the things they're doing on the land because either a neighbor suggested it or it's a new practice that they've learned in a workshop, or they've been watching a whole bunch of YouTube university. And they're so scattered. They're not making any progress on their land. They're spending lots of time and money and not seeing the rewards to compensate for that time and money, which is leading to disenchantment frustration and even to a couple extents burnout where they just wanted to quit and sell and move back to the city or. I'm running into experienced land stewards who've been doing the same thing year in and year out, and they're burnt out. There's no change. They're still spending all of their income. The land is still performing the same and they're still using the same practices. There's no change. There's no growth, which can lead to boredom, dissatisfaction, and possibly even frustration. We're doing what we've been told or what is being expected, but until we include ourselves into that stewardship, the disenchantment, the frustration, the burnout, the boredom and dissatisfaction is going to prevail. Why? Because we're all unique. We all have our own unique gifts, our personal experience, our unique values, our unique dreams. What works for the neighbors or experts in the workshop or on YouTube are likely not gonna work completely for everyone. We need to take into account our uniqueness. What works for Joe Salatin at Polyface Farm in Virginia and his team of interns is not going to work for you. Starting out by yourself in South Texas. Your neighbor's suggestion of spraying Grazon to eliminate those broadleaf weeds to clear the way for more forage meaning, greater flexibility in your grazing program and the higher per acre beef production at the lowest cost possible, According to the neighbor, and it might work for his management goals, but it might not match your management goals if you wanna regenerate ecosystem function to reduce inputs and increase productivity, your county extension agent might inform you that you can only have three animal units per acre with set stock grazing, but you will be managing your cattle to allow for that adequate recovery after grazing. So you'll likely be able to carry more than that on your land. Your neighbor might sell his livestock at a specific sale barn because they have the best prices, but because you've been restoring ecosystem function and and you have a diversity of plants in your pasture and have livestock that hasn't needed any chemicals, any hormones, any antibiotics, and thereby more nutrient dense. You're losing all that value in quotes if you sell'em at the sale barn. If you wanna work with nature, instead of depending on pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and antibiotics to keep the land and livestock healthy, then you need to screen and sift any advice or suggestion given to you about what you should be doing. If you're a new to the land steward and you've gained the knowledge from workshops and YouTube, that to diversify your income stream is the only way to keep afloat on your land. Your lack of experience, not knowledge, but experience is quickly gonna frustrate and burn you out. And what is exciting for your neighbor or consultant might not excite you. In fact, it might repel you if you can't be full-time on your land because you have a full-time off-farm job and only have weekends and evenings to manage the land with creativity and time management, you can implement systems and management that allows you to steward your land towards your desired outcomes. If you don't feel confident on how to manage your land and depend completely on other suggestions, you're gonna be scattered with your management and will likely not see the results you want. If you don't have deep clarity on how you want your life on the land to be like, you'll be easily swayed by all these external inputs, the extension agents, the consultants, the workshops, the YouTube University sales reps that are all available to you. Each of us has a dream for our life on the land. Each of us have our own set of unique values with respect to our environment, finances, and community. Each of us have our own set of unique experiences. Each of us have our own set of ways of thinking, processing emotions, and communicating. We need to consider that uniqueness and how it will impact our decision and our management. We need to consider if some of that uniqueness is beneficial or harmful to our decisions and our management. Let me share with you a couple of personal examples of how my uniqueness affected my decisions and my management. I have experienced times of profitability and also times of losses during the times of losses. I eventually recognized by way of a great therapist that I completely disassociated during times of its financial stress. I completely ignored the unpaid bills I kept on as if everything was going great. The fear of that situation was so great. I couldn't address it, and because I wasn't addressing it, I didn't adjust my management to make the required changes to stop the losses. Because of this mental and emotional shutdown, I wasn't able to use my innate creativity, which we all have to figure out how to resolve the losses. Once the therapist helped me recognize what I was doing, then I was able to get myself out of the hole. Now recognizing that disassociation is my default, I have, put systems in place to keep me from doing that. I have a bookkeeper who holds me accountable. I have, created a self-care routine so that disassociation doesn't kick in with financial stressors. My second example, I was a single parent for many years and eventually remarried during my homesteading phase. That's when I still had a full-time corporate job while homesteading on five acres. After gaining the holistic management knowledge and tools advocated in the framework, it gave me the confidence to start pursuing a full-time ranching operation. After recognizing that I only wanted a family garden and not a market garden, gardening was not for me except for my own personal consumption) as newlyweds. I shared this with my husband, and because he wanted to be supportive, he came along for the ride, but it really wasn't what he wanted to do and he didn't understand that I wanted to work with nature rather than against it. And with his degree in agronomy from a land grant university, his mindset and knowledge and experience meant that he and I were butting heads all the time about what needed to be done. This caused frustration, resentment, and poor communication between us. When I decided to pursue becoming a holistic management educator and coach, I had to walk the talk. So my husband agreed to sit down with me to write our holistic goal, basically what we value, what our desired financial, ecological, and social outcomes were. Each of us completed our own value worksheet and then came back together to see where, we had common ground. After many deep and honest and sometimes painful conversations, we determined that we would be better off as friends than husband and wife because we really wanted different lives our financial, ecological, and social desired outcomes we're just not the same, and we couldn't find any common ground. We went our separate ways. I'm ranching full-time, working with nature and speaking, educating and coaching land stewards, and he's living the life he wants. I call him when I have mechanical issues and he calls me when he's got business concerns. We can't be effective and thriving land stewards if we haven't incorporated ourselves into our management. Every land operation is going to be a direct reflection of the land stewards. Our goal is not to have a farm or ranch or homestead looking, like an urban subdivision with one of the three house plans and carefully mowed front lawns. Our goal is to have each homestead, farm or ranch be a display of your unique creativity, gifts, desired financial, ecological, and community desired outcomes When we don't incorporate ourselves into our management, we aren't going to thrive. If any of this resonated with you and if you're burnt out, you're frustrated or you're stressed, or if you're just not feeling confident in your management, I'd love to chat with you. My contact info is in the show notes. You are just as important as the livestock and the land. Make sure you incorporate you into your management. Talk to you next time.

11:03

Thanks for listening to Regenerative Agriculture, thriving as a modern rancher. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, share with fellow ranchers and leave a review. Together we can regenerate our lands, our profits, and our lives. Until next time, keep thriving.