087: I Drove Five Hours for Yoga With Horses. Here’s What I Brought Home.

How Taking Time for Yourself Can Help You Work Better

Would you drive two and a half hours each way for an hour of yoga with horses?

I did. Horses were a big part of my life for years, and lately I’ve wanted to bring that connection back. When this last-minute opportunity appeared, I decided to go.

The afternoon gave me time with friends on the phone, an audiobook, silence, and room for ideas to emerge. I came home feeling more centered and creatively refreshed.

In this Sustainable Success episode, I share what that experience reminded me about making room for yourself when there’s always more work to do.

We talk about:
• Recognizing an opportunity to reconnect with something you love.
• The difference between a real scheduling obstacle and feeling you should be working.
• How stepping away can create room for fresh perspective.
• Enjoying personal time without requiring it to become a business opportunity.
• Choosing one realistic activity and making it happen.

Reflection question:
What have you been postponing because it’s just for you?

This Week’s Reset:
Choose one activity you’ve wanted to do for yourself. Pick a time and take the next practical step, whether that’s making a reservation, arranging help, or protecting an hour on your calendar. Afterward, notice whether you enjoyed it and how you feel.

Continue the conversation in the Facebook group:
Limitless Living for Women Who Are Becoming.

For the Sustainable Success waitlist, visit:
https://www.fredrickadavis.com

Be rooted, be resilient, and be limitless.

Grab Your Free Reset Guide and more at www.fredrickadavis.com

Continue the conversation inside the here: Limitless Living community.

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Transcript

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I drove two hours, actually two and a half hours this past weekend to do yoga with horses. One hour of yoga, two and a half hours there, and then two and a half hours home. And yes, I know when I say it like that, it sounds a little crazy and like that's just a lot. But I really wanted to go. And by the time I got home, I was so glad that I had. So welcome back to the Limitless Living Podcast. I'm Frederica Davis, your host. And today I want to talk to you about taking time for yourself, especially when you have a business, a busy career, or a whole lot of people counting on you. Because there's almost always something else you could be doing. I mean, really, I have such long lists. I don't know about you, but I know I do. And you could catch up on work, you can get ahead for the next week, or finish something on the house. You know, there's always things. Answer the messages you haven't gotten to. And then an opportunity comes along to do something that you would really actually love to do, and you start calculating in your mind whether you can actually justify choosing to do that. I do the same things. I have this happen to me the same. But this particular afternoon was a really good reminder of why I need to make room for things that matter to me. And it also got me thinking about how we all approach sustainable success. So let me tell you how this happened. First, I saw this opportunity to do yoga with the horses. And it was very, very last minute. And my first thought was, ooh, I really would love to do that. That looks awesome. Then I checked the date and I thought, okay, great. I'm not with clients. I could make that work. And then I looked where it was and it said two and a half hours away. I thought to myself, okay, that's kind of far, but I really would like to do this. Hmm. Horses have been a big part of my life. I grew up with them. I used to teach riding. I taught therapeutic riding. I spent a large portion of my life around them. And I love all things horses. And as it has been said, the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man or woman in my case. And it is very, very true. And I've been away from them for too long. So a few weeks ago, oddly enough, I had consciously put it out there that I was on a mission to bring horses back into my life. And I genuinely did not have any idea where I was going to fit at my schedule or every detail figured out. I just knew that I wanted to be connected again and spending time with horses. And then this opportunity popped up. Now I could have looked at the distance and like most rational people said, well, maybe another time, something closer will come along. Driving five hours for one hour is just ridiculous. But I thought, hmm, I have the afternoon. I want to experience this. I'm going to experience this. Why would I not do this? This is me time. So I decided to go. And I looked at the drive a little differently too. In my mind, it was just time I would have to spend to myself. I could listen to music, I could call a friend and catch up, or listen to an audiobook, or just be quiet. I didn't have to spend five hours being annoyed that I was driving. The drive could be part of the afternoon, part of the adventure, part of the journey. And that is exactly how I approached it, and that's exactly how it turned out. So for part of it, I listened to an audiobook. I did call a few friends. Some of the time, I actually turned everything off and drove in silence. It was beautiful. There was also some brainstorming that went on. I did some dictation because ideas were coming to me after I had been with the horses. And when I got in the car, I didn't really have an assignment in my head to solve a business problem. I was going to just do whatever I wanted to do. But having that time and having a different, fresh experience got my creativity going. So I came home with ideas about ways I might want to bring horses back into my world, things I might want to explore for future retreats. There may even be possibilities for connections with the farm owner or the facilitators that were there. We'll see. While I'm interested in those possibilities, I didn't need for this afternoon to turn into a business opportunity for me to feel like it was worthwhile. That matters to me because I could very easily take something I love and then all of a sudden I'm starting to figure out how it's my next endeavor and I'm going to build something big around it and so on. Maybe you do a version of that too, where you enjoy something and before you even finish doing it, you're thinking about whether or not you should teach it, sell it, post it, or somehow make it useful. Sometimes, though, an idea is absolutely worth exploring. I'm certainly not telling you not to do that, especially if it's a good idea, but I went there because I wanted to be there and I wanted to do it for me. Even if nothing else comes from it, I got to spend the afternoon doing something that brought me back to a part of myself that has been missing. I felt more relaxed, I was more centered, my stress level came down, I had a completely fresh perspective, and that's exactly what I wanted. Now think about your own life for a minute. Is there something you used to love that has gradually disappeared from it? Maybe you know exactly what it is. Maybe it pops up into your mind right away. You hear me talking about horses and you're thinking about your paint still sitting in the closet or the hiking trail you haven't been to in years. It could be dancing, gardening, concerts, spending an afternoon with a friend, doing nothing but sipping and talking, or maybe it's something you never even tried. But every time you see it or think about it, you think to yourself, I would really love to do that. Ask yourself, what usually happens after that thought? Do you look into it or you simply discount it and explain to yourself why it's just not the right time? Sometimes it really isn't a good time. I get that because I mean, let's face it, we all have responsibilities. I do too. There are days when taking an afternoon off would just create a problem you'll have to deal with later, and it's not necessarily worth it at that moment. But there's a difference between looking at your circumstances and automatically dismissing everything that's just for you. I had the afternoon available, and the biggest obstacle was whether I thought the drive was a responsible thing to do. And once I decided I wanted the whole experience, including that time to myself, it completely made sense to me. So you might never drive that far for yoga with horses, and that's okay. Your version could be just 20 minutes from home. I know some people think a 20-minute drive is far. And for me, because I grew up being about an hour away from most major grocery stores, hospitals, doctors, and everything, it's a hop, skip, and a jump if it's an hour or less. And two hours isn't much different than that. The part I want you to consider is what you keep setting aside all the time, even when there might very well be a way to make it happen. Because honestly, if your plan is to get everything done first, you're gonna be waiting for a very long time. Let's face it, do any of us really get everything done first? I've owned a business for more than four decades. There has always been something else to do. There will probably be always something else to do until the day I die because I am a person who has a lot of things I want to do. Because even when you finish your list for the day, it's common to notice something else that needs improving or doing, or have an idea of something else you want to do. Someone needs an answer, something pops up, something changes. So eventually what happens is you have to decide where your own life fit into all of that. And this is where I want to connect this story and this stream of thought to sustainable success. When you're running a business, you spend a lot of time making decisions. Now, some of their big ones, most of them are going to be daily, day in, day out, small decisions, but they still require attention. They require energy. And they can still be overwhelming, even if they're small decisions, especially when they keep coming at us, such as what do I need to do first? How should I respond to this person? Do I need to order supplies? Is there, is this offer working? How am I going to train this person? Should I change something? What's my marketing doing? What are my numbers looking like? Can I take on one more thing? You guys get the picture, right? There's a lot. There's a whole lot. And if you're tired and feeling pressure, those decisions start to feel really challenging and heavy. So you might find yourself sitting down to write something or create the next ad or offer and struggling with each and every sentence. I've been there. Or you might feel like you keep going back and forth, back and forth on a decision because you just don't feel clear. Sometimes you genuinely need more information. Sometimes you just need help. But sometimes you've been at it for too long. And what you need is to leave it alone for a little while and take a break. And really, have you ever spent an hour trying to figure something out, then gone to do something completely different and suddenly thought, oh, that's what I need to do? I often have this when I'm walking. Clears your head, gets your body moving, helps with decision-making flows. Sometimes going to bed and getting a good night's sleep on something will bring you back with a fresh perspective. It can be that simple. That's the kind of experience I'm talking about. Taking the time. I'm not going to promise you that taking an afternoon off is going to increase your revenue automatically. And I can't tell you what this particular afternoon I spent with the horses will mean for my bottom line, if my bottom line will be affected at all. But what I can tell you is how I felt when I came back. And that's the important thing here. And what started happening with my ideas. I had given myself something different to experience. And I had some room to just be me and to disconnect. And I had room to think without forcing anything. Now that was really valuable in the work that I do. And depending on your work, it might have a lot of value for you too. Maybe you come back and you realize to yourself, okay, I've been making a project far more complicated than it needs to be. Or you see a simpler way to explain one of your services, or you get an idea for an event, or you finally just feel ready to make a decision that you've been putting off. It might be a whole lot less dramatic than that, too. You could simply come back with more patience for the next client or enough energy to give your attention to each of the tasks that are in front of you. That really counts. Those are major wins. So, and when I talk about productivity, I don't just care about getting more and more and more done. I care about whether the right things are getting done and whether you can keep doing your work as well. Meaning, do you have longevity? Will you continue to be able to do it and sustain it without sacrificing yourself? You can fill an entire day and still avoid the thing that would have actually moved you forward in your business, your work, your life. And sometimes you can just simply step away, give yourself a break, come back clearer, and do in an hour what would have maybe taken you the entire afternoon because it was just dragging. So I want to be careful here because I don't want you to turn your afternoon and afternoon off or anything like that into a performance review. It's not what I'm talking about. Don't go for a walk and start thinking, okay, did I get a profitable idea while I was walking? Did it make my time worthwhile? No, don't think like that. You go out and you do this for yourself, just to be, you're allowed to enjoy the walk. The creativity follows after that. When you turn your walk into work, then it's a different effect. It's not the same. Now my creativity started flowing on this trip, but it was at the end of this trip. After I had stretches of silence, after I did some singing to some great music, after I had talked to a couple of friends, after I had taken an hour of movement, yoga, and connection and horses and sunshine and wonderfulness, it was after that and it was a surprise. And there was no rule about how I wanted to use the time. So I would have been okay coming home without having that burst of creativity or clarity on the way home. That just happened to come and be a result of me giving myself the space that I needed. And in my experience with clients and myself, what I is so important here is freedom to feel good. If every moment has to have a purpose attached to it, even the things we call self-care can start to feel like work. We start thinking to ourselves, okay, we have to do the right morning routine, we have to listen to the right book, we have to choose the activity that's going to improve us the most. Maybe what you really need is something you enjoy without a whole improvement plan attached. For me, it was being around horses that meant something because of my history with them. It was also taking a few detours along the way on the way home. I have this philosophy, I don't know about you, but anything over two hours qualifies as a road trip and requires a trip to the Cracker Barrel gift shop. It's okay. You can laugh at me. It's fine. And that's different from choosing an activity because someone told me it would be good for me. So when you start deciding what to make room for, pay attention to that. What is it that appeals to you? What leaves you feeling glad that you did it? You don't have to choose something that sounds impressive. And while I'd love to see it at one of my future retreats, you genuinely don't need to organize an entire retreat to get started giving yourself space. If you haven't had much time for yourself lately, start with something you can realistically protect. And let me give you a way of thinking through this. So first pick something specific. Saying something like I need more time is very understandable. And while it may be true, it doesn't really give you much to work with. Instead, try, I want to go to that Saturday art class. That gives you something that you can check. You can check your schedule, you can check how much it costs, you can make it happen, you can set it aside, you can sign up for it ahead of time. It's tangible. And if you don't know what you want to do, go back a little bit. What did you enjoy before your life got so crazy busy? What have you been interested in lately? What are the Facebook events that keep popping up that you save but maybe never go to? And then look at what it would actually take for you to take advantage and do it. Maybe you need to arrange some coverage or some help at home or finish something a day earlier so you can free up that time. Or maybe, like me, you look at your calendar and realize the time is already there. Wow, okay, I could make that happen. And you seize the moment. Carpe diem. Try to separate the actual obstacle from the feeling that you should be doing something else. An actual obstacle might be that you're scheduled with a client already. That's an actual obstacle. Thinking, I really should be catching up on my paperwork. That's a different conversation. Once you choose a time, put the activity on your calendar, sign up for it, make it so that you're going to go, pay for the ticket, whatever it is you need to do. And if there's something you need to arrange, do that. Make the call. Ask the person who might be able to help you with whatever you need and get the ticket. That makes it much easier to follow through than keeping it as an idea you'll get around to eventually. And when you go, give yourself a chance to really disconnect, to really experience it. You can take a picture with your phone. I'm not saying you have to leave your phone at home, but if you spend the whole time answering work messages, checking your social, or looking at your phone or answering it, you're not really present in the experience itself. Notice that. Are you actually getting the time that you came for? And then afterwards, just pay attention. Did you enjoy yourself? Do you feel any different? Would you want to do it again? I know I would want to do it again. I can't wait to go back out there and do it again. And maybe you do something and it wasn't what you expected. That's going to be useful information as well. I know as you're listening to this, you're smart enough to know this, but sometimes we get stuck a little bit in feeling obligated to certain things. And I want to just say, you are not obligated to keep doing something because it's supposed to be relaxing. You might actually try something and say, well, I tried it, I didn't really like that. I'm going to try something different. Or, hmm, I tried that, I didn't really like it. And I'd really rather spend an hour walking alone than attend this big event. Or that being with other people is exactly what you have been missing. So for me, I'm in groups, I'm one-on-one, and I am with people all the time, whether it's on the phone, on a Zoom, in my office one-on-one, teaching a workshop, speaking, whatever it is. So for me, I really value that alone time. If I had a job that was not like that, I'd probably want to be seeking the connection in my personal time. You have to figure out what works for you. You'll learn this. There's also something I want to acknowledge. As soon as I said, I want horses back in my life, this opportunity meant something the moment I saw it. I recognized it. Now, might I have seen it and noticed it otherwise? Yes, if it would have popped up, I would have. However, there is this flow of energy in the world. And I don't want to get too woo-woo here for those of you who are not woo-woo, but there is. If you've ever heard or read the book, The Law of Attraction, or watched the movie or anything like that, there's a lot of different unspoken or spoken, I could say by now, unseen laws out there. What we put out is what we get back. And I really have experienced this. I've watched it with clients. And when you acknowledge and verbalize and put it out there into the world, what it is that you want, whether you're asking God or whether you're asking the universe or starting to recognize things, making the conscious choice or not, the likelihood of more opportunities coming to you grows. The likelihood of you recognizing them and seeing them grows. And this can really show up in so many ways in your life. That's for a whole nother episode we can do on a different day, but it's worth asking yourself what you want more of, even before you fully know what it is. And it's worth putting it out there once you figure out what you want more of. So asking yourself what you want more of is a question that really gives you somewhere to start. And don't just ask this in your business, in your career, in your obligations around you. Ask it for yourself. And if you're listening and you're thinking to yourself, okay, I honestly just don't have a whole afternoon right now, I hear you. I a hundred percent hear you. Start with what you can do, but also take an honest look at whether your schedule leaves any room for you over the longer term. I'm betting if you look at your schedule with an honest look, there are certain things that you have gotten in the habit of doing or that is expected of you to do that you don't necessarily need to continue to be doing. And that might free up 10 minutes for a walk. It's as simple as that. And if your schedule never frees up at all, that's something we need to address when we talk about sustainable success. Because is it really successful if you've sacrificed your life and you're not even able to carve out a moment to enjoy something? Because I really want to help you build a business and a life that you can actually live in and enjoy. Of course, your income matters, your commitments matter, and any of the work, the promotion, the next milestones, whatever it is you want in terms of success, it all matters. Those are all things that matter to me too. I also want to keep having experiences, though, that remind me of what I care about beyond the next thing on my list. After all, why do we work? Don't we work to have financial security, to have a sense of accomplishment, to have freedom to live our lives and enjoy our lives and choices? This past weekend did that for me. And yes, it gave me some ideas, and I'm really excited about some of them. But even if it had not given me that, then it brought me back renewed. I said yes to something I wanted instead of spending another afternoon explaining why I should wait or working through my list. So here's the reset for this week. Choose one thing you've been wanting to do for yourself and take the next step that makes that possible. It can be really small, it can be something you do at home. Just make it specific enough that you know what you're choosing and when. Here's what I'd love to hear from you this week. What have you been postponing because it's just for you? Come tell me that in our Limitless Living for Women Who Are Becoming Facebook group. And maybe there's something you have already started bringing back into your life. I'd love to hear about that too. What did you choose? How did it feel to make room for it? And if this brought up a bigger question for you about how your business fits into the life that you want, you can also visit Fredericadavis.com. You can check out all my experiences there. I have a midlife reset event coming up on October 17th. But that's the work we're moving toward. Looking honestly at your responsibilities, your capacity, and what needs to change so you can keep doing the work that you do and pursuing the goals and the dreams and the successes and the promotions and whatever it is that you want without continually setting yourself aside. That's sustainable success. So thank you so much for spending part of your day with me. Until next time, be rooted, be resilient, and be limitless.