Freedom and Finding Myself again.

In my last post I mentioned that I had a lot of changes on the work front and that is what this post is going to center around. However, I want to tie it into the horse world too...I chose the title Freedom because to me that is what I have gained, but I also understand more now why I was drawn to positive training instead of Negative Reinforcement with my horses.

Since 2004 I have been involved in the service industry for a big corporation. And when I burnt out of dog training, I moved on to grooming. Why? Well at first it was a money decision, but then I fell in love with dog grooming. I worked my way into management because I like managing also. And for years I was asked if I liked what I did. And for a long time the answer was yes, but then as time went I realized I wasn't enjoying it as much as I used too.  It all really came down to numbers. And as one area would be going great something else always went south it seemed. As I would improve something, they would say that is good, but. It took me a long while to see the toll it was taking on me. Somewhere along the way I started to answer the question about if I loved my job with "well it allows me to have my horses, and other animals" That was my way of trying to convince myself that I stilled enjoyed what I did. But I was slowly losing myself as time went. I was becoming bitter in a lot of ways. I felt stuck. I try to be a very positive person, I love finding the joy in life. But I was finding myself complaining a lot and not liking the person I was becoming. And then one day last summer while on a conference call I was told from the higher ups that if I wanted to keep my job I wouldn't allow two people to take vacation at the same time during the summer. We had plenty of coverage and I knew how to run my schedule so we would be fine. I had already approved their vacation requests, so I got to be the wonderful person who went and told them someone couldn't go. That was the day I realized I could no longer work for the type of corporation that looked at their people as numbers and just that. They were telling me to choose between being a decent human being and keeping my job. It wasn't the 1st time my job was threaten over someone else. But it was the beginning of the end for me. It was then that I decided to change my future. I enrolled in school and decided to switch careers. A very hard decision for me as change scares me, but change doesn't scare quite as much as the person I was becoming. I lived my life stressed, but I never really knew how much until I was no longer in that position. Tomorrow I will go in and groom my last dog, one would think I would be sad, but I am not. I am not sad because my love of that career was ruined by never being told "Thank you" and always hearing about how we needed to work harder and take more dogs. I have now found out what it is like to live not stressed. I am finally finding myself again.

So how does this apply to horses, well simply put it proves the journey does matter not just the end result. I want to make sure my horses are thanked each and every time they come out to work with me. And if the only "reward" I use is removing a threat then that isn't much of a reward is it? Just as with my job my reward was keeping my job if my team performed to their (corporations) expectations. Frankly that wasn't a reward in my eyes that was a relief. Keep that in mind the next time you keep using pressure for your horse to perform and all you give them at the end is release of the pressure. Think about what motivates you to do better, threats or rewards? I can tell you I did improve under threats our team made our plans, kept us under budget, tried to make sure it was a safe salon, and overall grew the business, but I wouldn't have grown bitter if they hadn't threaten so much. When I gave my notice I was thanked for all my hard work, but by then it was too late. I had grown to hate it and no matter how many thanks they gave me at the end  it wasn't going to make up for all the threats they doled out through-out the years.  Lucky for us horses are more forgiving then humans and they will give us another chance to get it right.
Moving on and looking forward to a bright and happy (less stressful) future.