Navigating Farming Career Transitions & Ask Steph

Why do we know exactly what needs to change and still feel completely stuck?

If you’ve ever had that thought of “if nothing changes, nothing changes” sitting in the back of your mind, but still can’t quite take the step forward, this episode will meet you right there. I talk through why change isn’t just about willpower. It’s about capacity. And when you’re already stretched thin on the farm, at home, or mentally, change can feel almost impossible.

I walk you through what’s happening in your brain when you’re under stress, and why you might keep falling back into the same patterns even when you know they’re not helping. I also share a practical framework, the Stages of Change model, to help you understand where you’re at and what your next small step could look like.

This episode isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about making sense of why things feel stuck and finding a way forward that fits your life right now.

What’s one change you’ve been thinking about but haven’t quite made yet?


I’d love to hear what came up for you in this episode. Come and share it with me over on Instagram @stephschmidt.farmlifepsych   

What we cover in this episode

• The phrase “if nothing changes, nothing changes” and why it can feel frustrating 
• Why knowing what to do doesn’t mean we’ll do it 
• How habits form in the brain and why change feels effortful 
• The impact of stress and low capacity on behaviour change 
• “Limp mode” and how stress shuts down higher thinking 
• Why we default to autopilot under pressure 
• Giving yourself permission and grace when change feels hard 
• Introduction to the Stages of Change model 
• Pre-contemplation stage and lack of awareness 
• Contemplation stage and feeling stuck in indecision 
• Why many people sit in contemplation for long periods 
• Practical tools for the contemplation stage 
• Moving into preparation and setting realistic plans 
• Common mistake of skipping preparation 
• Action stage and maintaining behaviour change 
• Importance of reviewing what gets in the way 

Connect with Steph

• Steph's website
• Digital Hub for Farmers: farmlifehandbook.com.au 
• Steph on Facebook
• Steph on LinkedIn
• Steph on Instagram
• Steph's upcoming events

The Farm Life Psych podcast shares general information and personal reflections to support wellbeing — it isn't therapy, counselling, or personal advice, and it's not a substitute for support from a qualified professional. If something's sitting heavily with you, please reach out to your GP, a psychologist, or a trusted support service. If you're in crisis or need to talk to someone now, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. You're not alone, and reaching out is a strength.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If nothing changes, nothing changes. You've probably said that to yourself more than once, or thought about it when you thought about something that was happening on the farm, or what your partner or family member was doing. You've thought about moving your body more, having that hard conversation, or changing your practice on the farm that you know it isn't working. You know what needs to change, but still nothing goes. And then that inner voice kicks in. Why can't I just get my act together? Why can't I just do it? What I want you to hear today is that nothing is wrong with you. Change is genuinely hard, and the more stress we are under, the harder it gets. You're listening to Farm Life Side with Steph Schmidt. I'm your host, Steph, a psychologist, farmer, farm wife, mum of three, and founder of Farm Life Side. This podcast is for people in agriculture, navigating the challenges and joys of life on the land, where I share practical, evidence-based tools to strengthen your well-being, navigate stress, and manage our relationships. Follow so you don't miss an episode. And just a reminder that information shared here is general in nature and not a substitute for individual professional advice. Let's get into today. Hello and welcome back to Farm Life Psych with me, Steph Schmidt. I'm so glad you're here. We're jumping into episode three today, or episode 31, I think. Overall for all the episodes, but episode three this year. I want to start today with a phrase that you might have heard at some point, or you might have said it to yourself a few times. If nothing changes, nothing changes. And on the surface, most of us probably know this. The hard part isn't knowing it. It's trying to one make sense of why we don't change at times. And then giving ourselves a bit of grace for when we don't change and when we get stuck. And then how do we actually make the changes that we know we want to make? Whether it is moving our body more, whether it's getting to bed more, whether it's stopping yelling at our kids, whether it is changing a practice of what we're doing on the farm. So often we know the changes that we need to make, but we don't change. Or we start it and then we get stuck and then we go back. Because that's okay. That's what happens when we try and make change. You see, the way our brain works is the more we do something, the stronger those pathways become in our brain. So when we're creating change, it's like we are trying to shift from a habit, something that's formed like a highway in our brain, to something that's like a little path through the peg. It's not even a formed path. So if we do it once, it's there kind of a little bit. The more times we do it, the stronger it becomes, the more reinforced that pathway becomes. But it takes a lot of effort to make that change. So whatever change that you've thought of needing to make, what I wanted to explore a bit in this episode today is one, a little bit why we get stuck in change, but also a model that helps me make sense of change. It's a model that a lot of therapists hold in their mind when they're working with clients, and hopefully it might help you a little bit just to kind of help get into change a bit more. And then at the end of today's episode, we've got an ask Steph question, which it actually came, is where the stages of change I first flagged it. And so that's why I thought I'd dive into it a bit more. Last episode, I explored some of the ideas of the strengths that exist in farming life, the things that help us keep going, even when things do feel heavy. And I guess I wanted to expand on that more today of what happens when we know we need to make a shift, but we're stuck. We're stuck in the mud and we're not moving. Or we know we're running ourselves into the ground. We know the conversation we might be avoiding, we know the habit that we might be stuck in that isn't helping. We know, we know what we want to do differently, but still nothing changes. And there's an extra layer to this, which is especially, I guess, prominent or something we definitely need to be aware of right now, is that change is hard in general. But when you add stress, when you add chronic stress on top of that, change becomes even harder. When we are under stress, especially when we're under chronic stress, if we think about our capacity kind of levels, if we're running low on capacity, if our silos are pretty empty, what our brain does is it almost goes into protective mode. So it takes us off of that kind of reflective mode. It takes us out of self-awareness and it puts us into autopilot. You know, like when you're driving a vehicle and something starts to malfunction, the little computer switches in to mean that suddenly the car won't go over 80 kilometers an hour and the air conditioner stops working and cruise control stops working. Like just all these little things suddenly stop working. It's like when we get into high stress mode, our brain kicks in and goes into like protective mode and goes, I'm gonna switch off your capacity for awareness, for choice, for decision making right now. So stress narrows down our thinking, it pushes us into this survival mode. We stop thinking long term, we stop thinking so much about how things are impacting everybody else, we stop thinking with a whole lot of empathy and emotional reasoning, all of that kind of goes out the window because we just go into what do I need to do to get through today? Our body brain kind of goes into limp mode. So all of a sudden, our body takes us to the pantry and pulls out the chocolate bar because that's what our body wants to get us through the day. Um goes and gets the bottle of wine or the stubby of beer. It's focusing on getting us through the day. So when we get stuck in those habits, even when they're unhelpful, even when they keep us even more stuck, it makes sense because our brain is doing what it's designed to do. So I just wanted to give you, and probably this is for myself as well, a little bit of grace at the moment that if your silo's already been running low, there's not a lot of capacity left to put into making changes. So if you get caught in those thoughts of why can't I just get my act together? Why can't I just do it? Like, come on, Steph, just do the thing you want to be doing. The answer isn't necessarily that you're not trying hard enough. Maybe it's that you're just already carrying a lot. So this is where I come back to this model called the stages of change model, because I think if we can simplify things for ourselves a little bit and understand the things that can help us to make change a bit easier, to help us to reduce the friction around change a little bit more, it helps. It can help us make those changes. So it's from like the 70s, I think, by a couple of psychologist researchers, and it was Protesca and D. Clemente. So back like 40 years ago or so, that this was first being developed. And psychology is all about finding models to explain our behavior. So much research that is done in three unis looks at kind of what works in therapy, what I don't know, what people do and why is really, I guess, how I think about psychology. And so the stages of change model helps us understand how we can create behavior change. It's often used in helping around health behaviors such as changing addictions, increasing exercise, smoking cessation, all of these types of things. So it looks at we've got these six stages of change, and this is like a cycle or a loop, a bit of a roller coaster back and forth between the two. The very first stage is pre-contemplation. There's no intention of taking action. You are not even aware that there's a problem. So this isn't you thinking, oh, I wish I was moving more. This isn't you thinking, I wish I was exercising more each day. This is you being oblivious that there is anything that actually needs to change. That's okay. We're all in this space at different times. But that pre-contemplation stage can also be where things get tricky in our relationships or when we're trying to support others around us because we can see where others need to change. But if they're in pre-contemplation, doesn't matter how many times you tell them, they're not going to be ready for change at the moment. So the goal at this point is maybe increasing awareness a little bit. Just starting to gently highlight some of the risks around what the current behaviors might be. So just starting to spark that change of the possibility of change. Because then what we want to shift to is from pre-contemplation to contemplation, which is kind of like, well, maybe things need to change. Maybe things would be better if I changed. What might it look like if I changed? It's kind of that, yeah, I think things need to be different, but I'm not sure what that might look like. This is probably the stage that a lot of us get stuck in where you're kind of going around in circles. I see there's a problem, I'm not really sure, kind of comfortable where I am. I'm not sure if I'm ready to do something about it yet. It's that push-pull feeling. And that ambivalence is very much part of it because especially once the stress is high, staying in the status quo, staying as we are, is a whole lot more comfortable than making change. So when we're in that contemplation, contemplation can last a really long time. It might be months or years. It's not a failure. It's just where you are. Um, so just recognizing that contemplation stage of it being a stage. So something that we can do in this contemplation stage is starting to bring in a bit of that problem-solving mind. Start to look at the pros and cons of change. If things were to stay the same, what might it look like? If I started on this new behavior, if I started moving my body every day, if I reduced the amount of alcohol that I drank every day, what might the options look like? How might that look? And just kind of start to map that out a little bit. Use your visualization tool in your head to imagine how things might look different. Identify as well what are the obstacles, what gets in the way of needing to change. So we weigh up the pros and cons. Use your visualizing abilities to kind of imagine what might a day in your life look like if you were to get up each morning and go for a walk. Then think about what are the obstacles that do get in the way in that? What are the things that make it harder to make that change of where you're heading? And as you map out those obstacles, you can start to kind of work out ways around them to reduce that friction, to kind of make it easier to make that change, which then leads us into the next stage of preparation. All right, I know I want to make this change. I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it, let's go. So you're in the preparation stage. A lot of us skip the preparation stage and go straight to action and then kind of wonder why the wheels fall off pretty quickly. So making that action plan to kind of organize what needs to be done. If you're going to move your body every day, is preparation basically having your sneakers at the end of your bed and making sure they're there each night for the next week. Develop that plan and make it happen. Set up some accountability partners, work out what support is around you. So you want to increase your commitment to making that change, set down your goals, kind of make it clear as well, and don't set 10 goals in place. Set one or two goals in place. Okay, and then create that plan around that change. So then preparation moves to action. Right, I'm doing it, I'm doing the thing. So this might look like you've set the goal for moving each day, you've put your sneakers at the end of the bed, you've gotten up, you've put your sneaks on, and you've gone for the walk. You need to keep your goals in place. So that is uh kind of the first couple of days I always find it easiest. Then you need to keep that action going. Keep implementing that plan. Keep revising as well of that checking in to see what's getting in the way. I didn't go for the walk today. What got me stuck? What got in the way? It was raining. Okay, what could be a backup plan that I could put in place? Make sure you're rewarding your successes as well. Kind of giving yourself that dopamine hit of a reward better, celebrating with a message to your friends, putting stickers on a chart, whatever it might be. Because then once we've kind of set that action in place, then it moves to maintenance. Maintenance part is a really hard part to get into because it takes a while to get to it. And again, if we think about creating new routines, new habits, new changes, new behaviors in our mind, whatever you've already been doing, that's like a highway. What you're starting to do is like a little sheet track, a goat track through the paddock. So you need to do it and do it and do it and do it again for it to start becoming even stronger. And the good thing is the way our brain works, old habits, they kind of do start to disintegrate a little bit. Takes a really long time, unfortunately, that whole thing of old habits die hard. Those highways don't just disintegrate overnight. It does take continued effort to create that change. And so that's where that maintenance, you really need to set in those supports, whether it's reminders in your phone, um, setting calendar alarms, whatever it might be, um, maybe setting some affirmations to remind yourself. Keeping on integrating it as well when your situations change, when you're away, keeping on integrating those changes. Because the next step is relapse. It's part of the model because old habits die hard. So often we'll return back to that earlier stage, and that's okay. That'll happen. Recognizing that it's part of that cycle, it's part of how we go. So we've got pre-contemplation. I don't even know there's an issue, there's nothing I need to change. Contemplation, I know there's something to change, I'm really not sure about how to change it just yet. Preparation where you start making the plan. And this is a really vital step, I think. One that we often all miss. Action. Putting that action for change in place, reinforcing it for yourself and keeping on doing it. Then maintenance, keeping it going and keeping it going, and then relapse. We will fall back, and that's okay. You just come back in and come back through. So we go round and round through these cycles. And I think what I find helpful in this is that so often we we highlight what we want to change and then we move straight to action. We don't always do the kind of prep work before it. I think, especially when our stress is high, we just go, right, I want this to be different, and I jump straight into it. But needing to create that preparation, also looking at what the obstacles are going to be, that really helps it pay off in the long run. So, one thing I want you to kind of just remember through this, it's not a straight line, it's not linear. We move forwards, we loop back, we get stuck, we just keep on trying again, and that's okay. That's how change works. And also through this all, just checking in with yourself, what is my capacity to change right now? Because change does take up energy. Stress is already using that energy up. So we need to kind of check in on what our capacity is. And maybe even when we know that something needs to shift, that's when we then need to go. How do I make that the smallest possible shift? And how do I remove as much friction as possible to be able to make that shift? I hope that's helped. It was kind of a sidetracked idea from where I was originally heading. But it's been something I've been thinking a lot about myself because I kind of get stuck in making change for myself as well. A couple of questions that might be helpful for yourself to reflect on and maybe to draw on if you're supporting other people to make change as well. Instead of getting caught in the shoulds, well, you should be moving your body every day. You should be drinking less, you should be eating healthier, instead of getting caught in the shoulds. What if we asked ourselves or you asked those you cared about, what's making this hard for you right now? What's holding you back right now? So if we shifted away the goal from being, right, let's get them to make this change right now, but to help yourself or the person you care about to feel safe enough just to move and make the way through this. Okay? What's making this hard and what's holding you back? Right. And then we will wrap up. It's been a while since I have uh done one of these, but it did pop through. The form is on the webpage, so you can pop in a question there that you'd like me to cover on the podcast. Again, just noting this is not individual therapy, it is just general advice in nature. But I feel that this one probably has resonated with people. So the question here, and it's something that has also come up when I've spoken at events, often people kind of asking it in relation to their partners as well. So, hi Steph. I may need to leave farming due to family circumstances, and I'm finding it really daunting. Do you know of any farmers who have had to change careers and how they manage that transition? The business is successful, farming is all I've ever wanted to do, and after 30 plus years of working for myself, I have no idea what else I'd do. Any thoughts on navigating that kind of transition? It's a lot. It really is a lot. And it's such an important question and something that I want to start by just acknowledging just how much is inside of it. That really and truly, as much as we talk about that, right, we need to separate farming from being part of our identity and let farmers know that they are more than just the farm, all of that, it does well and truly become part of our identity. It also becomes so much of what you value. And there's that practical side of yes, the business, the income, the identity of being your own boss, but also that grief that may be there for around leaving something that you have built, something that you've loved, something which has become part of you. Because I don't think it's just straight about going into problem-solving mode. We also need to recognize and validate the feelings that are there as well. So, first off, what you're feeling, that kind of push and pull between the decisions, it makes complete sense. It's not just a career change of going, right? Am I gonna, I don't know, change from being a livestock agent to moving into banking. Gosh, who knows? It is that big part of your identity shift. And look, honestly, I've felt this in many ways, not so much so the farm is part of it, but for me, being a psychologist has very much formed part of my identity. And even though it's now been five years. Since I've actually done individual one-on-one therapy as a psychologist, it's still not a title that I'm quite ready to let go of yet. It's something I hold on to, it's something that I'm proud of being. It's something that is, it is only one part, but it forms an important part of my identity. So that identity change and shift, it's tricky. And particularly when farming is what you've dreamed of doing, is what you've always wanted to do, when you still enjoy doing it, stepping away from it, even if it is for the right reasons or for health reasons, it can feel like you're losing a part of yourself through that. And that grief is real. And it's worth validating that for yourself and giving yourself that space and feeling it. Rather than just pushing through it and trying to stick to the facts, we need to give the emotions space as well. A few ideas that I'd kind of sit with is, and I think I'm going to do a bit more of a podcast episode on this, is looking at the stages of change. So when we think about change, making any kind of change, we've got the stages that we move through. And the stage that you're in right now is contemplation. You're weighing it up, you're sitting with uncertainty, maybe not quite ready to move yet, but also not able to just stay with where you are either. And it's not an indecision that you're in right now, it's actually a normal part of making big changes. You can't just leap into the change without this contemplation stage. Also knowing your skills are far more transferable than they potentially feel right now. So, yes, you've been running a farming business for say 25 years, but there are so many aspects to that business, so many skills inherent in that business that you've operated. So you likely have financial management, problem solving under pressure, people management, risk assessments, logistics, leadership. I'm not sure what type of farming this person was from, but there's all kind of the animal health or the crop health, all of those parts of that. And the world outside farming, while it might not be kind of that direct transition, those skills, they are really there. And while you've been working for yourself or within your own business for that 20, 25 years, that's not a gap. You haven't been on holidays for that time. You have been working in a role. So a lot of people with those kinds of backgrounds might move into consulting type roles, contracting if you're perhaps older and moving into that space at retirement, something like a contracting role might give a little bit of flexibility. Look, to be honest, there are times where I throw my hands up and just a friend and I joke about maybe it's just time to go work at Subway or stack shelves at Woolies because no discredit to those jobs. I just, I'd really like something where I don't have to think that hard sometimes. So there's that flexibility, I guess, to either adapt and create something new that fits with you. Or also if you're at a time in life where you still enjoy farming, you still want to be farming, maybe looking at other options like going to work on farm, but within a different business may also be an option there. And again, maybe a pay cut from running your own business, but you're not then carrying the pressures. And I know, like for us personally on our farm, a lot of other farmers that probably gosh, we'd probably love to have some older employees who have yes, spent their time in the game and they know how things roll and they've got a bit more knowledge and that expertise in it. So I think the options are there, but to move into that problem-solving mode, you also need to first validate the emotions that are there as well and give them that space. Then maybe do a brain dump of all of the things, all of the different roles, not even recently, like over the last couple of years or the last 20 years, all of the different roles, all of the jobs, all of the projects that you've done on the farm, chuck it all out on paper and then see what starts to align. Also, then see what those values are. You might find that as you work through that, some of those values start to shine out. That maybe like what you love about farming are things like being outside in nature, being in a job that's productive, that you see the end result at the end of the day, that's hands-on, that's maybe it's the teamwork side. Or you might see the values that come out of being like problem solving or financial management. Love the data side in farming. Who knows? There are so many different aspects that fall under that umbrella of farming. But it's not until you start to break it all down that you can see what that might be. So, my thoughts validate the emotional heaviness and all of those feelings that come along with it. It's okay that they're there and it makes total sense that they're there. Then step into problem-solving mode, get the pen and paper out. Hey, AI can be a great help with this one, whether you use cord, chat GPT, whatever. Tell them what kind of farm you've run, tell them all the jobs you've done, and then let it kind of spit back lots of the kind of equivalent type of areas. Chat about it with some peers, um, your networks, your family, about some other ideas as well. So it's a bit of a staged thing of some validating how hard it can feel, recognizing that that brief, that identity shift, that is real. And then problem solve, dream big, dream small. Just kind of chuck all the ideas out there and then work out what just the one next step might be. So I hope that's a couple of ideas around that ask steph one. It's one that does come up. Um, so yeah, I'd love to hear from you if you've got any ask steph questions. I hope you've enjoyed today's episode, a little bit on change, some ideas around the stages of change, why we get stuck and change can be hard. And then the really important ask steph question around changing away from our farming identity and changing away from that business. I would love to hear back from you if you've got any reflections on today's episode. Please send me a message on Instagram or on socials. I'd love to hear from you. And until next time, don't forget to fill your side of it. Thank you so much for listening and for taking just a few moments to care about your well being today. If you'd like more practical tools or any information on upcoming workshops and events, check out stashschmidt.com.au or connect with me on socials at stashmidt.farmlifesite. I look forward to joining you next time on our next episode of Farm Life Site with Staff Schmidt.