How to Reduce Overwhelm on the Ranch

Overwhelm and ranching go hand in hand, right? Actually, they don’t have to. There are simple strategies to implement that can make all the difference in not only how ranchers feel but what their bottom line looks like too.  

Jasper Oeltjen is a rancher in southwest Minnesota who is an educator by trade. Her experiences in ranching, education and the IT space led her to start Heritage and Horizons – a business that specializes in teaching ranchers to manage intentionally instead of in reaction mode. 

“We hit a place where we finally grew to where we wanted to be. Then we kept hustling and kept hustling, but our operation wasn't going anywhere and we plateaued,” says Oeltjen.  

This is when she decided enough was enough and applied the same strategies she used in previous careers to move their own operation forward. 

“Five years ago, we started reassessing our strategy and I started pulling elements from previous strategy conversations with businesses,” says Jasper. “These elements helped us form what our goals were, how we wanted to move our operation forward and to pull ourselves out of reacting constantly.” 

Managing in a state of reaction versus intention makes all the difference in reducing overwhelm. 

She says, “We just were reacting to what whatever was in front of us...becoming clear and intentional about what it is we wanted really shifted our operation for us.” 

One example Jasper provides is if you want to increase cattle performance via improved nutrition, create a plan with a nutritionist and stick to it instead of doing the same thing over and over again if it’s not producing desirable results. 

Operating out a place of intention also means distinguishing between busy and productive. The day-to-day operational tasks will always be there and need to get done, but not carving out time plan and chip away at more important projects doesn’t produce growth.  

“We tend to in the agriculture space get distracted by being busy, which is not the same as being productive,” says Oeltjen. “We were busy and checking all the boxes, but we weren't actually headed in the right direction for our operation.” 

The first phase of reducing overwhelm is deciding the destination or end goal. One example Oeltjen shares is the analogy of a road trip. If a family decides they are going on a road trip, but everyone has a different destination, nobody will get to their desired location.  

Oeltjen explains, “If you don't know what you want your destination to be, you’ll just be driving in circles.” 

Once goals are clearly defined and everyone is on the same page, it’s time to break them down into smaller pieces.  

“Phase one told us we are going to the Rocky Mountains. Phase two tells us which highways we are taking,” shares Oeltjen. 

A ranch example of phase two looks like outlining what changes need to be made to achieve the goal of higher weaning weights.  

The third phase is an easy one to skip over but one that can’t be ignored – assigning metrics to understand what’s actually happening on the ranch. Sticking to the road trip analogy, this is figuring out how to get to the pit stops.  

“We forget that we need to understand why we're doing it,” says Oeltjen. “What's the purpose of doing it if it doesn't match our goals and we're driving the wrong direction?”  

The fourth and final step is being proactive and avoiding road construction as much as possible. 

“This is where we look at your operation as a whole and understand you have a whole herd of 12-year-old cows and you haven’t been retaining heifers,” says Oeltjen. “Have a plan in place for this scenario years in advance.” 

All of this sounds great but what about inclement weather, market crashes or sudden family events that feel like they can derail everything? The answer – control the controllables. 

She says, “Although these other things are out of my control, what is in my control, I can adjust to minimize that damage so I'm not wasting my time and energy on something that's not going to move me towards my goal.” 

Overwhelm and ranching don’t have to go together. Carve out time to create that roadmap to improve your mental health and bottom line.  

Listen to the full conversation on the Casual Cattle Conversations podcast.