“When the pandemic started two years ago, I felt such despair.  I remember exactly the feeling of walking down my driveway in late March 2020 and realizing there was nothing I could do about the situation.  But then I remembered that I did have some control over how I responded.  And it was then that I turned my focus toward helping as many people as possible and, with my extra time, starting my journey toward becoming a chicken mama by building a chicken coop.

I remember my mom telling me that when you are struggling, it is a good time to turn your focus outward.  And I’ve found this so fulfilling that I intend to make my goal of helping people a lifelong pursuit.

My second goal, becoming a chicken mama, has definitely been successful but I learned a lot along the way.  So, on the two-year anniversary of embarking on this journey, I thought I’d share a little about what I’ve learned through my chicken mama experience:

• Chickens can fly. Yep, they have wings, and they will use them.  We put our chickens into our coop and they flew right out.  What else did I learn?  You can never know everything you need to know before starting a new adventure.  Just jump in and embrace the learning!
• Hens will lay an egg in the darkest place they can find, and it will often not be in the nesting box. Nothing is predictable, so expect the unexpected.
• Be prepared to laugh at yourself. I’m sure my neighbor still chuckles over the time she caught me trying to find eggs from my free-range chickens in the woods next to my property.  See #2 above.
• Face your fears. Avoiding what scares you doesn’t really make the fear go away, it just adds stress to your life.  Learning how to assert myself with my rooster, Oden, was not easy.  He had flogged me, launched himself at me, and flown right at my face.  But it wasn’t until I summoned the courage to actually catch him that I gained confidence in my skills as a chicken mama.
• Hiring a chicken coach was a great investment. There is no doubt that you can figure out your own solutions given enough time, but getting an outside perspective or assistance can reduce the learning curve and get you on your way to achieving your goal much faster.
• If you commit, it will be worth the hard work. After my first flock of chickens flew the coop (see #1), I decided to contain my second flock in an outdoor dog run.  We brought the chickens into the run and they immediately squeezed themselves through the chain link fencing and ran for the woods.  I remember running around trying to catch them, wondering if this chicken mama thing was worth it.  Everything worth doing will require a recommitment once you start to question the hard work.  After two years, I can safely say that I have finally achieved what I wanted – a steady stream of fresh eggs.  No rooster drama, no broody hens (at least not yet), and plenty of eggs.

While you may not be an aspiring chicken mama, I share all this because getting what you want requires hard work, determination, learning, experimenting, tears, frustration, small gains, setbacks, and eventually success.

Over the past two years, we have all had to fight through things that we never would have imagined: isolation, fear, illness, death of loved ones, an underlying, constant level of stress, financial hardships, forest fires, a zombie apocalypse, etc.

I have been so impressed with the stories of people who strove to reinvent themselves and their businesses by learning new skills, making new product lines, and discovering new ways of communicating. Somehow, we have made it through the past two years.

I’m not minimizing the tremendous loss of life, and as I write this, I can feel the weight of those years.  But many of us who were lucky enough to emerge from this pandemic feel stronger than when we started, even though we may feel exhausted, frustrated and quite honestly fed up.

Now is a great time to reflect on what you have learned in the past two years, what your true priorities are and how you want to live moving forward.

If you feel that you haven’t quite achieved what you wanted to over the past two years or are concerned about being able to sustain your priorities, please reach out to me.  If I can’t assist you, I can introduce you to someone in my network who is uniquely qualified to help you.”

About the Author:  When she is not working towards chicken mama mastery, Julie Markee spends her time as a Professional EOS implementer, helping leadership teams optimize the key elements of running their business resulting in higher profits, more control and accelerated growth.  If you are ready to get the entire organization crystal clear on your vision, executing on that vision with discipline and accountability and advancing as a healthy, functional, cohesive team, she can be reached at julie.markee@eosworldwide.com or learn more at www.eosworldwide.com/julie-markee. 

Julie is also an excellent cook.  Give her Famous Pizza Dough recipe a try!