We all have thoughts that bounce about in our head all day. Lots of these are fleeting and subconscious in many ways. Others tend to sit front and centre, and we find them hard to shift. These thoughts can be positive or negative.

We also have feelings that can change many times throughout the course of our day as well. These are a bit harder to define, as often it’s difficult to attribute a particular meaning to them – we just know they are there.

If the feelings are uncomfortable, the natural tendency is to suppress them and try and forget about them. That’s certainly one way to approach it. Another way is to sit with the feelings and let them work through.

The more I have learnt about myself throughout the years, the more I have come to understand that sitting with your feelings and embracing them will ultimately lead to personal growth. Well that’s my experience anyway.

Other people may have a different view, and that’s OK.

Professional help is certainly one of the best ways to refine these skills. Intuition is another way to describe feelings in some ways. We all understand the concept of following your instincts. Some people I know follow theirs religiously, and others revert to what their logical mind is telling them. Lots of us get stuck in our heads.

In a farming context, there is ample opportunity to ruminate on thoughts during any given day, and to come up with plenty of “what if” scenarios. Some of these ideas might be quickly disregarded as being impractical, or quite simply not a good proposition. Other thoughts may tend to hang on for a while, and may even gain momentum.

If the idea has legs, it’s really easy for the logical mind to think of a whole bunch of reasons why it won’t work.

This is when you have the choice to either listen to your head or follow your heart.

Of course, it won’t be evident for some time which path was better. In fact, you’ll never really know, as you’ll have to choose one path regardless.

It’s easy to not take risks and stay in your comfort zone. And, there is nothing wrong with this, if this is your choice. You just need to own your decision and move on, and not think about what could have been.

I know a few business owners that have made decisions that I thought were crazy. But what I think isn’t relevant. The person who is making the decision is the one that counts. Of course you need to be cognisant how decisions may impact those around you. But if you want to have a go, you may as well.

Even just being able to identify when thoughts are coming up is a very good start.

If you’re able to recognise this at the time, you can make a definitive choice about what you are going to do with that thought.

You can ponder for a while, or consciously take your thought process elsewhere. We all have the choice.