September 4, 2019 • 21 mins
We all make mistakes. Let me tell you, Christian and I have made quite a few on our homesteading journey. In today’s episode, I’m going to dive into the top 5 mistakes we’ve made over the last few years. These learning experiences are sure to save you time, money, and headaches in the process. No matter if you own a homestead, are interested in becoming a homesteader, or simply enjoy learning about the lifestyle, there are valuable lessons to learn throughout.
Some highlights from the episode:
- Why doing it right the first time is always the best way to do it
- Why thinking bigger is better
- You can’t do it all at once, so don’t try
If you're ready to begin this homesteading journey, head to http://www.theprairiehomestead.com/grow to access my full library of resources to guide you down the path.
OTHER HELPFUL RESOURCES FOR YOUR HOMESTEAD:
- Sign up for weekly musings from my homestead: http://theprairiehomestead.com/letter
- Get my free homesteading tutorials & recipes here: www.theprairiehomestead.com
- Jill on Instagram: @jill.winger
- Jill on Facebook: http://facebook.com/theprairiehomestead
- Apply to be a guest on the Old-Fashioned on Purpose podcast: https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/podcast-guest-application
Did you enjoy listening to this episode? Please drop a comment below or leave a review to let us know. This can help other folks learn about this podcast and we also really appreciate the feedback!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast.
Today's episode is all aboutmistakes.
I am going to dive into thebiggest mistakes that we have
made so far in our home settingjourney.
This is an episode not to missbecause you're going to learn a
(00:22):
ton by learning what not to doand even if you're not currently
homesteading, maybe you want todo it in the future or maybe you
just enjoy hearing about thelifestyle.
These mistakes and accompanyinglessons are easily applied to
other areas of life as well.
(00:43):
I'm your host Jill winger, andfor the last 10 years I've been
helping folks learn how to leavethe rat race and create the life
they really want by taking thebest of the old ways and weaving
them into our everyday modernlives.
Okay, so I am pumped for thisepisode because if there is one
(01:07):
thing I'm really good at, it ismaking mistakes.
I am the queen of mistakes.
However, that doesn't mean Ihaven't had successes as well.
And I really truly believe thatsuccess is just a pile of
(01:27):
failures that you're standingon.
And so I'm going to dive in toour top five homesteading
mistakes that we've made so far.
And I say so far because thereare plenty more to come in our
future.
I am certain, but you are goingto know by the end of this
episode exactly what not to doas you build and create the
(01:52):
homestead life you dream of.
All right, so let's just diveright in.
Mistake number one.
Oh my goodness, this one got usgood and it is not building
things right the first time.
This would probably cost us moretime and more money in the long
(02:15):
run than any other mistake.
Now a little bit of backgroundon Christian and I, we are
pretty frugal people.
I'm probably more frugal than heis and that's not a bad thing,
right?
Frugality is a good trait.
It is just good.
It's helped us to stay out ofdebt, which in turn gave us a
(02:37):
lot of power and momentum movinginto our homestead journey.
It's good stuff.
However, frugality can go toofar.
Let me explain.
So when we first startedbuilding our homestead from the
ground up, well, I mean it hadsome structures here as you
(02:57):
probably heard in the firstepisode where I kind of gave the
backstory of how we found thisplace.
There was a lot of work to do,right?
We had some barns, we had somefences.
They really needed to be guttedand, and revamped.
So as we were purchasingmaterials, namely things like
posts, barbed wire, fencing,wood for decks and building, you
(03:21):
know, buildings and soffits andfacias and all of those things.
We had a long list of projectsand as we looked at this list of
projects, we were on a limitedbudget and we wanted to stretch
the budget as much as possible.
So we decided that we would dothat by purchasing the cheapest
materials possible.
(03:42):
So we've got the cheapest,skinniest fence posts and we got
the cheapest rolls of barbwire.
Hey, if you have ever gone tothe feed store and priced
barbwire, it's crazy expensive.
So we, we got the cheap rolls.
And I remember when we werebuilding our deck around the
front of our home.
We were looking at treatedboards, that's the type of wood
(04:05):
that's treated with chemicals soit doesn't rot.
And we got two by fours insteadof thicker boards because they
were cheaper and we thought,hey, a board is a board, we'll
slap it on the deck, call itgood.
So we tried to cut these cornersjust for the sake of the budget,
which seemed like a good idea atthe time.
However, in the long run itresulted in us having to redo
(04:30):
those projects over and overagain because here's the lesson
we learned from this mistake.
It pays to spend a little bitmore on the quality materials
and that's kind of a universaltruths.
That's pretty much almost alwaystrue.
So that cheap Barb wire, itbroke and sometimes it even
(04:54):
broke while we were stillputting it up and we would go to
stretch it tight and it wouldsnap, which was super
frustrating.
And those cheap posts crackedand warped and those boards on
the deck, those were myfavorite.
And I'm saying that withsarcasm, they actually were
still wet with the treatmentchemical when we nail them down.
(05:19):
And they ended up curling likeactually curling like a ribbon
on a Christmas package up andthey popped the screws out of
the ends.
So we had these lovely boardsthat were warped and twisted and
curled up on our brand new deck,super classy.
It took us a few of thoselessons to resolve that we're
(05:41):
gonna build things right thefirst time.
And even though it's a littlemore pricey for the pocketbook,
buying the better qualitymaterials, first it pays off
because you're not having torebuild and buy more and replace
the cheap ingredients or thecheap materials rather later on.
(06:02):
Okay, mistake number two.
I don't know if this is acomplete mistake, maybe more of
a little bit of being naive, butwe believed at the beginning of
our homestead journey that itwould save us money.
Now I say this with a little bitof a caveat because it can be
true that homesteading savesmoney in some instances.
(06:26):
So take vegetable gardening, forexample, if you go and buy a
pack of seeds and you just digup a little plot in your
backyard with your shovel, youplant the seeds, you water them,
you're going to get a lot ofvegetables depending on what you
plant for only a few bucks.
(06:47):
And you know the costs of seedsand the cost of water, which is
pretty small.
That's a great investment.
That does save you money in yourgrocery budget.
The same goes for startingseeds.
The other day I went to town tothe nursery to get some plants.
The tomato starts were aboutfour bucks a pop, right?
So if you wanted to buy anynumber of those to get homegrown
(07:11):
tomatoes, that's gonna add upreally quickly.
And the resulting tomatoes aregoing to be pretty darn
expensive and probably actuallycosts you more than it would
have cost to go get a tomato atthe store.
However, if you want to grow abunch of tomatoes, you get a
pack of tomato seeds for$2 andyou start the seeds yourself
(07:35):
under grow lights or in a sunnywindow sill.
And then you proceed totransplant those outside grow
them throughout the year.
You can end up with 20, 30, 40tomato plants for really cheap
and those plants are going toproduce a lot of tomatoes and
make a lot of tomato sauce orwhatever else that's going to
(07:56):
save you money.
Now that doesn't always work.
Or those same equations don'twork in all instances.
For example, keeping dairyanimals, let's say a milk cow or
a dairy goat.
It's probably gonna cost morethan just buying the discount
gallons of milk at the store.
(08:17):
Right.
A good milk cow, I believe ourscosts of around$1,200 sometimes
they're more like$2,000 by thetime you feed her and you know,
get her bred back so she has ababy each year, you know,
selling the calves are going,that's going to offset your cost
a little bit.
But ultimately that resultingmilk, if you decide to do the
(08:40):
math and figure out how muchyou're paying for feed, how much
you paid for the cow, and thengoing down for the cost of a
gallon.
I'm not sure I'm brave enough toactually figure that out because
it's probably going to be alarge number.
That's not necessarily to becost effective.
However, you have to keep inmind the other benefits.
(09:01):
So for us, we keep milk cows,because we love raw milk.
I love the experience of havingthose cows.
I like the process of milking.
I like all those things.
So those bring a quality of lifefactor into the equation.
But if I was just doing milkcows to save money, that's not
(09:24):
gonna work out number wise quitelike I would want it to.
Okay.
Mistake number three, thinkingtoo small.
And now this one is kind of afunny mistake.
Um, because maybe not funny.
Sadly funny, we ended up havingto rebuild a lot of pieces of
(09:48):
our homestead property becausewe thought too small at the
beginning.
We have 67 acres, which soundslike a lot, but we actually, and
this was kind of how it was setup when we bought the property.
So it wasn't entirely our fault,although we definitely added
kind of our own issues ontothat.
(10:08):
But our whole barn yard andhouse and everything is on a
very small section of that 67acres.
So it's kind of in the middle.
We have a rectangular chunk andit's kind of on on one side in
the middle of that rectangle,and then the rest of the
property is all around it inkind of a u shape, which isn't
necessarily bad, but as westarted building more
(10:30):
outbuildings and getting moreanimals and expanding, it almost
started to feel like we wererunning out of room on 67 acres
because we'd kind of boxedourselves in to this little
courtyard area and we built afence all the way around it.
So what did we do?
We had to rip out the fence andexpand it.
(10:50):
Now this is a littleembarrassing ya can't laugh at
me.
We actually ended up rebuildingthat fence line two different
times because we kept moving itback to expand and moving it
back again to expand.
But Christian and I say it toeach other constantly.
As we're looking at the nextyears of building and growing
(11:11):
our homestead, we say, hey,remember we didn't think big
enough at the beginning so wehave to think big moving
forward.
So as you are planning yourhomestead layout, whether that's
on your current property or on aproperty you are going to
purchase in the next few monthsor a few years, make sure you're
mapping out longterm goals soyou don't end up building fences
(11:35):
and buildings in this teeny tinyarea and then kind of boxed
yourself in.
Okay, mistake number four.
This one applies to life ingeneral as well, not just
homesteading but mistake numberfour, getting stuck in the
(11:56):
comparison trap.
Now, this is a tough one and Ithink social media, as much as I
love social media because it'senabled me to have a tribe of
amazing homesteaders just likeyou, it also brings in this
element of giving us a peak intopeople's lives all over the
(12:16):
world, which prior to socialmedia would have been a non
issue because we would only seenthe people directly around us.
Now that's not to say thatcomparison or envy or jealousy
wouldn't come into play then aswell because that's been an
issue since the beginning oftime, but it's so much easier to
(12:37):
look at someone's homesteadthat's, you know, 5,000 miles
away and suddenly you start tocompare it to your own journey
and you start to feel bad andstart to feel unworthy and not
good enough.
And all of those things creepin.
Now, I'm not going to be, I'mnot going to say that.
I still don't struggle with thisoccasionally because I feel like
(12:59):
it's kind of an on going battle.
Right?
And there's times wheredepending on my state and where
I'm at with emotions or goals,there's times when I just stay
off of social media because itkind of triggers those feelings
of comparison to rise up and itdoesn't feel good and it really
(13:20):
is distracting.
And that's for me is the biggestissue with comparison.
Like that quote goes, comparisonis the thief of joy.
It's also very distracting.
It's the thief of focus and Ican't tell you how many times
I've been on my path doing mydreams and chasing my goals and
(13:40):
feeling really, really goodabout where I'm going and
knowing that I'm on the rightpath for me personally.
And then I look over here atSuzy on social media and I see
her garden or I see her herd ofcows or her the way her fences
are, and suddenly I feel bad.
I feel bad about myself, I feelbad about my goals, and I start
(14:04):
looking over there and getcompletely distracted off of
what I know I am supposed to bedoing.
So if you struggle with thattendency, I encourage you to
really, really limits yourexposure to social media or
youtube or wherever you'regetting those feelings coming
from.
And just be mindful of that.
(14:26):
You're going to accomplish themost on your homestead the
fastest when you just stay inyour lane and just focus on the
things you know you're supposedto be doing.
The grass really isn't greeneron the other side.
Um, and it's funny because youknow, there've been times when
I've compared and felt not goodenough.
(14:47):
And then when you finally do getto that other side, you know,
let's say you're jealous ofpeople because they have a
beautiful garden.
And then, you know, there's beentimes when I've had those
feelings, I kind of forget aboutit and then I find myself three
years later, you know, mygarden's finally where I want it
to be.
It's great, but it doesn'tnecessarily fulfill everything
(15:08):
you want in life.
Right?
You still had to work to getthere.
It's still a process.
So focus on what you're supposedto focus on and hey, if you're
feeling this sense of wanting ordesiring more, and that really
is triggered when you see peopleon social media, I encourage you
to just pause and really dissectthose feelings because sometimes
(15:33):
it's just straight up comparisonand sometimes it's actually a
call for you to play bigger.
And that has been another pieceof that that I've learned over
the years.
Sometimes when I see someonethat just really bothers me and
I feel like they're living thelife I want, you know, sometimes
it's appropriate to justunfollow that account.
(15:56):
But other times I really breakit down and say, Hey, am I doing
what I'm supposed to be doing?
How come I'm drawn to that?
What do I need to do to shiftthat?
Is that something that I shouldbe pursuing instead?
You have to keep that healthyand you have to keep boundaries
in place, but sometimes you canlet, when you're looking around
at what others are doing, youcan let that be your inspiration
(16:18):
as well.
Okay.
Now mistake number five, thefinal mistake, and this is one
we still struggle with and westill are trying to keep in
check and that is trying to doall the things at once.
So we all have differentpersonalities and I'm guessing
(16:41):
that some of you will have noissue with this and some of you
will be a little more like uswhere it's a bit more of a
trial, but Christian and I havereally intense personalities,
which can be a great thing.
It can also cause a lot ofstress when we bite off more
than we can chew, which happensfrequently.
(17:03):
So this is a do as I say, not asthey do tip.
Really try to keep your focusnarrow down to just a couple big
projects or maybe one bigproject at a time so you don't
get too frazzled with your handsin too many different things.
(17:26):
I'll never forget, 2015, I waspregnant with our third child
who was a surprise and I wasputting on, I was co-hosting a
online summit was aboutessential oils and it was huge
and it had so much work involvedhours and hours of interviews
and marketing and coordinationand we were getting our house
(17:48):
and it, so we had contractorshere all day.
I had my kitchen, one of thewalls was ripped off and it had
plywood over it and of course itwas winter, so it wasn't very
warm.
And you know, the electricitywould be off during various
parts of the day as we weredoing wiring and working on
things.
(18:09):
And I remember cutting potatoesby candlelight one night in my
very dirty, gutted kitchen andbeing pregnant and having all
these online projects to workon.
And it just was not enjoyable.
I didn't get to really enjoy anyparts of those processes because
there was too much.
And sometimes that'sunavoidable, but other times
(18:32):
that's just a matter of keepingyourself in check, not saying
yes to too many things at once,maybe not even saying yes to
yourself too much at once.
Right?
Like when is gardening season?
Focus on gardening.
Don't try to clean the cabinetsor get your kitchen at the same
time when it's the winter andthe garden is dead.
(18:52):
That's when you can go in andredecorate your kitchen.
So just try to be mindful ofseasons and flow and those
patterns of life and don't tryto do it all at once.
So those were our five mistakes.
Just to summarize, number one isbuild things right the first
(19:14):
time.
Number two, don't get stuckthinking that homesteading will
always save you money, but alsotake into account the quality of
life that comes with thatinvestment.
Number three, avoid thinking toosmall.
Number four, steer clear of thecomparison trap.
And number five, balanceyourself so you don't try to do
(19:37):
all the things at once.
And remember my friend, it isokay to mess up.
I have people emailing me allthe time who are too nervous to
start homesteading becausethey're afraid of the mistakes
and the failures that will comeand I invite you to embrace
(19:57):
those, know that you will messup, you will kill things in your
garden, you will build yourfence lines in the wrong spot
and have to move them.
I mean, maybe that was just us.
Hopefully we'll have to do thatafter you listened to this
episode, but it could happen andyou will do things just flat out
incorrectly, whether it's in thekitchen or in the barnyard and
(20:19):
you will pick yourself up, dustyourself off and try again
because that's really theessence of this journey.
It's really the essence oflearning anything in life, the
ability to make a mistake andkeep on trucking.
And as long as you can hone thatability and you don't let a
little bit of failure knock youoff your dream and your goal,
(20:41):
you are going to rock thishomestead life.
So if you are ready to dive intohome setting but you're not
quite sure where to start, I'myour girl.
I have created an entire libraryof resources just for
homesteaders like you, whetheryou're brand new or experienced,
(21:05):
and you can get complimentaryaccess to this library at
theprairiehomestead.com/grownow, that's it for today's
episode.
Thanks so much for listening.
Please hit subscribe and drop aquick review over on iTunes.
When you have a minute, thatwould mean so much to me and I
(21:27):
can't wait to chat with you onthe next episode of the old
fashioned on purpose podcast.
Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast.
Today's episode is all aboutmistakes.
I am going to dive into thebiggest mistakes that we have
made so far in our home settingjourney.
This is an episode not to missbecause you're going to learn a
(00:22):
ton by learning what not to doand even if you're not currently
homesteading, maybe you want todo it in the future or maybe you
just enjoy hearing about thelifestyle.
These mistakes and accompanyinglessons are easily applied to
other areas of life as well.
(00:43):
I'm your host Jill winger, andfor the last 10 years I've been
helping folks learn how to leavethe rat race and create the life
they really want by taking thebest of the old ways and weaving
them into our everyday modernlives.
Okay, so I am pumped for thisepisode because if there is one
(01:07):
thing I'm really good at, it ismaking mistakes.
I am the queen of mistakes.
However, that doesn't mean Ihaven't had successes as well.
And I really truly believe thatsuccess is just a pile of
(01:27):
failures that you're standingon.
And so I'm going to dive in toour top five homesteading
mistakes that we've made so far.
And I say so far because thereare plenty more to come in our
future.
I am certain, but you are goingto know by the end of this
episode exactly what not to doas you build and create the
(01:52):
homestead life you dream of.
All right, so let's just diveright in.
Mistake number one.
Oh my goodness, this one got usgood and it is not building
things right the first time.
This would probably cost us moretime and more money in the long
(02:15):
run than any other mistake.
Now a little bit of backgroundon Christian and I, we are
pretty frugal people.
I'm probably more frugal than heis and that's not a bad thing,
right?
Frugality is a good trait.
It is just good.
It's helped us to stay out ofdebt, which in turn gave us a
(02:37):
lot of power and momentum movinginto our homestead journey.
It's good stuff.
However, frugality can go toofar.
Let me explain.
So when we first startedbuilding our homestead from the
ground up, well, I mean it hadsome structures here as you
(02:57):
probably heard in the firstepisode where I kind of gave the
backstory of how we found thisplace.
There was a lot of work to do,right?
We had some barns, we had somefences.
They really needed to be guttedand, and revamped.
So as we were purchasingmaterials, namely things like
posts, barbed wire, fencing,wood for decks and building, you
(03:21):
know, buildings and soffits andfacias and all of those things.
We had a long list of projectsand as we looked at this list of
projects, we were on a limitedbudget and we wanted to stretch
the budget as much as possible.
So we decided that we would dothat by purchasing the cheapest
materials possible.
(03:42):
So we've got the cheapest,skinniest fence posts and we got
the cheapest rolls of barbwire.
Hey, if you have ever gone tothe feed store and priced
barbwire, it's crazy expensive.
So we, we got the cheap rolls.
And I remember when we werebuilding our deck around the
front of our home.
We were looking at treatedboards, that's the type of wood
(04:05):
that's treated with chemicals soit doesn't rot.
And we got two by fours insteadof thicker boards because they
were cheaper and we thought,hey, a board is a board, we'll
slap it on the deck, call itgood.
So we tried to cut these cornersjust for the sake of the budget,
which seemed like a good idea atthe time.
However, in the long run itresulted in us having to redo
(04:30):
those projects over and overagain because here's the lesson
we learned from this mistake.
It pays to spend a little bitmore on the quality materials
and that's kind of a universaltruths.
That's pretty much almost alwaystrue.
So that cheap Barb wire, itbroke and sometimes it even
(04:54):
broke while we were stillputting it up and we would go to
stretch it tight and it wouldsnap, which was super
frustrating.
And those cheap posts crackedand warped and those boards on
the deck, those were myfavorite.
And I'm saying that withsarcasm, they actually were
still wet with the treatmentchemical when we nail them down.
(05:19):
And they ended up curling likeactually curling like a ribbon
on a Christmas package up andthey popped the screws out of
the ends.
So we had these lovely boardsthat were warped and twisted and
curled up on our brand new deck,super classy.
It took us a few of thoselessons to resolve that we're
(05:41):
gonna build things right thefirst time.
And even though it's a littlemore pricey for the pocketbook,
buying the better qualitymaterials, first it pays off
because you're not having torebuild and buy more and replace
the cheap ingredients or thecheap materials rather later on.
(06:02):
Okay, mistake number two.
I don't know if this is acomplete mistake, maybe more of
a little bit of being naive, butwe believed at the beginning of
our homestead journey that itwould save us money.
Now I say this with a little bitof a caveat because it can be
true that homesteading savesmoney in some instances.
(06:26):
So take vegetable gardening, forexample, if you go and buy a
pack of seeds and you just digup a little plot in your
backyard with your shovel, youplant the seeds, you water them,
you're going to get a lot ofvegetables depending on what you
plant for only a few bucks.
(06:47):
And you know the costs of seedsand the cost of water, which is
pretty small.
That's a great investment.
That does save you money in yourgrocery budget.
The same goes for startingseeds.
The other day I went to town tothe nursery to get some plants.
The tomato starts were aboutfour bucks a pop, right?
So if you wanted to buy anynumber of those to get homegrown
(07:11):
tomatoes, that's gonna add upreally quickly.
And the resulting tomatoes aregoing to be pretty darn
expensive and probably actuallycosts you more than it would
have cost to go get a tomato atthe store.
However, if you want to grow abunch of tomatoes, you get a
pack of tomato seeds for$2 andyou start the seeds yourself
(07:35):
under grow lights or in a sunnywindow sill.
And then you proceed totransplant those outside grow
them throughout the year.
You can end up with 20, 30, 40tomato plants for really cheap
and those plants are going toproduce a lot of tomatoes and
make a lot of tomato sauce orwhatever else that's going to
(07:56):
save you money.
Now that doesn't always work.
Or those same equations don'twork in all instances.
For example, keeping dairyanimals, let's say a milk cow or
a dairy goat.
It's probably gonna cost morethan just buying the discount
gallons of milk at the store.
(08:17):
Right.
A good milk cow, I believe ourscosts of around$1,200 sometimes
they're more like$2,000 by thetime you feed her and you know,
get her bred back so she has ababy each year, you know,
selling the calves are going,that's going to offset your cost
a little bit.
But ultimately that resultingmilk, if you decide to do the
(08:40):
math and figure out how muchyou're paying for feed, how much
you paid for the cow, and thengoing down for the cost of a
gallon.
I'm not sure I'm brave enough toactually figure that out because
it's probably going to be alarge number.
That's not necessarily to becost effective.
However, you have to keep inmind the other benefits.
(09:01):
So for us, we keep milk cows,because we love raw milk.
I love the experience of havingthose cows.
I like the process of milking.
I like all those things.
So those bring a quality of lifefactor into the equation.
But if I was just doing milkcows to save money, that's not
(09:24):
gonna work out number wise quitelike I would want it to.
Okay.
Mistake number three, thinkingtoo small.
And now this one is kind of afunny mistake.
Um, because maybe not funny.
Sadly funny, we ended up havingto rebuild a lot of pieces of
(09:48):
our homestead property becausewe thought too small at the
beginning.
We have 67 acres, which soundslike a lot, but we actually, and
this was kind of how it was setup when we bought the property.
So it wasn't entirely our fault,although we definitely added
kind of our own issues ontothat.
(10:08):
But our whole barn yard andhouse and everything is on a
very small section of that 67acres.
So it's kind of in the middle.
We have a rectangular chunk andit's kind of on on one side in
the middle of that rectangle,and then the rest of the
property is all around it inkind of a u shape, which isn't
necessarily bad, but as westarted building more
(10:30):
outbuildings and getting moreanimals and expanding, it almost
started to feel like we wererunning out of room on 67 acres
because we'd kind of boxedourselves in to this little
courtyard area and we built afence all the way around it.
So what did we do?
We had to rip out the fence andexpand it.
(10:50):
Now this is a littleembarrassing ya can't laugh at
me.
We actually ended up rebuildingthat fence line two different
times because we kept moving itback to expand and moving it
back again to expand.
But Christian and I say it toeach other constantly.
As we're looking at the nextyears of building and growing
(11:11):
our homestead, we say, hey,remember we didn't think big
enough at the beginning so wehave to think big moving
forward.
So as you are planning yourhomestead layout, whether that's
on your current property or on aproperty you are going to
purchase in the next few monthsor a few years, make sure you're
mapping out longterm goals soyou don't end up building fences
(11:35):
and buildings in this teeny tinyarea and then kind of boxed
yourself in.
Okay, mistake number four.
This one applies to life ingeneral as well, not just
homesteading but mistake numberfour, getting stuck in the
(11:56):
comparison trap.
Now, this is a tough one and Ithink social media, as much as I
love social media because it'senabled me to have a tribe of
amazing homesteaders just likeyou, it also brings in this
element of giving us a peak intopeople's lives all over the
(12:16):
world, which prior to socialmedia would have been a non
issue because we would only seenthe people directly around us.
Now that's not to say thatcomparison or envy or jealousy
wouldn't come into play then aswell because that's been an
issue since the beginning oftime, but it's so much easier to
(12:37):
look at someone's homesteadthat's, you know, 5,000 miles
away and suddenly you start tocompare it to your own journey
and you start to feel bad andstart to feel unworthy and not
good enough.
And all of those things creepin.
Now, I'm not going to be, I'mnot going to say that.
I still don't struggle with thisoccasionally because I feel like
(12:59):
it's kind of an on going battle.
Right?
And there's times wheredepending on my state and where
I'm at with emotions or goals,there's times when I just stay
off of social media because itkind of triggers those feelings
of comparison to rise up and itdoesn't feel good and it really
(13:20):
is distracting.
And that's for me is the biggestissue with comparison.
Like that quote goes, comparisonis the thief of joy.
It's also very distracting.
It's the thief of focus and Ican't tell you how many times
I've been on my path doing mydreams and chasing my goals and
(13:40):
feeling really, really goodabout where I'm going and
knowing that I'm on the rightpath for me personally.
And then I look over here atSuzy on social media and I see
her garden or I see her herd ofcows or her the way her fences
are, and suddenly I feel bad.
I feel bad about myself, I feelbad about my goals, and I start
(14:04):
looking over there and getcompletely distracted off of
what I know I am supposed to bedoing.
So if you struggle with thattendency, I encourage you to
really, really limits yourexposure to social media or
youtube or wherever you'regetting those feelings coming
from.
And just be mindful of that.
(14:26):
You're going to accomplish themost on your homestead the
fastest when you just stay inyour lane and just focus on the
things you know you're supposedto be doing.
The grass really isn't greeneron the other side.
Um, and it's funny because youknow, there've been times when
I've compared and felt not goodenough.
(14:47):
And then when you finally do getto that other side, you know,
let's say you're jealous ofpeople because they have a
beautiful garden.
And then, you know, there's beentimes when I've had those
feelings, I kind of forget aboutit and then I find myself three
years later, you know, mygarden's finally where I want it
to be.
It's great, but it doesn'tnecessarily fulfill everything
(15:08):
you want in life.
Right?
You still had to work to getthere.
It's still a process.
So focus on what you're supposedto focus on and hey, if you're
feeling this sense of wanting ordesiring more, and that really
is triggered when you see peopleon social media, I encourage you
to just pause and really dissectthose feelings because sometimes
(15:33):
it's just straight up comparisonand sometimes it's actually a
call for you to play bigger.
And that has been another pieceof that that I've learned over
the years.
Sometimes when I see someonethat just really bothers me and
I feel like they're living thelife I want, you know, sometimes
it's appropriate to justunfollow that account.
(15:56):
But other times I really breakit down and say, Hey, am I doing
what I'm supposed to be doing?
How come I'm drawn to that?
What do I need to do to shiftthat?
Is that something that I shouldbe pursuing instead?
You have to keep that healthyand you have to keep boundaries
in place, but sometimes you canlet, when you're looking around
at what others are doing, youcan let that be your inspiration
(16:18):
as well.
Okay.
Now mistake number five, thefinal mistake, and this is one
we still struggle with and westill are trying to keep in
check and that is trying to doall the things at once.
So we all have differentpersonalities and I'm guessing
(16:41):
that some of you will have noissue with this and some of you
will be a little more like uswhere it's a bit more of a
trial, but Christian and I havereally intense personalities,
which can be a great thing.
It can also cause a lot ofstress when we bite off more
than we can chew, which happensfrequently.
(17:03):
So this is a do as I say, not asthey do tip.
Really try to keep your focusnarrow down to just a couple big
projects or maybe one bigproject at a time so you don't
get too frazzled with your handsin too many different things.
(17:26):
I'll never forget, 2015, I waspregnant with our third child
who was a surprise and I wasputting on, I was co-hosting a
online summit was aboutessential oils and it was huge
and it had so much work involvedhours and hours of interviews
and marketing and coordinationand we were getting our house
(17:48):
and it, so we had contractorshere all day.
I had my kitchen, one of thewalls was ripped off and it had
plywood over it and of course itwas winter, so it wasn't very
warm.
And you know, the electricitywould be off during various
parts of the day as we weredoing wiring and working on
things.
(18:09):
And I remember cutting potatoesby candlelight one night in my
very dirty, gutted kitchen andbeing pregnant and having all
these online projects to workon.
And it just was not enjoyable.
I didn't get to really enjoy anyparts of those processes because
there was too much.
And sometimes that'sunavoidable, but other times
(18:32):
that's just a matter of keepingyourself in check, not saying
yes to too many things at once,maybe not even saying yes to
yourself too much at once.
Right?
Like when is gardening season?
Focus on gardening.
Don't try to clean the cabinetsor get your kitchen at the same
time when it's the winter andthe garden is dead.
(18:52):
That's when you can go in andredecorate your kitchen.
So just try to be mindful ofseasons and flow and those
patterns of life and don't tryto do it all at once.
So those were our five mistakes.
Just to summarize, number one isbuild things right the first
(19:14):
time.
Number two, don't get stuckthinking that homesteading will
always save you money, but alsotake into account the quality of
life that comes with thatinvestment.
Number three, avoid thinking toosmall.
Number four, steer clear of thecomparison trap.
And number five, balanceyourself so you don't try to do
(19:37):
all the things at once.
And remember my friend, it isokay to mess up.
I have people emailing me allthe time who are too nervous to
start homesteading becausethey're afraid of the mistakes
and the failures that will comeand I invite you to embrace
(19:57):
those, know that you will messup, you will kill things in your
garden, you will build yourfence lines in the wrong spot
and have to move them.
I mean, maybe that was just us.
Hopefully we'll have to do thatafter you listened to this
episode, but it could happen andyou will do things just flat out
incorrectly, whether it's in thekitchen or in the barnyard and
(20:19):
you will pick yourself up, dustyourself off and try again
because that's really theessence of this journey.
It's really the essence oflearning anything in life, the
ability to make a mistake andkeep on trucking.
And as long as you can hone thatability and you don't let a
little bit of failure knock youoff your dream and your goal,
(20:41):
you are going to rock thishomestead life.
So if you are ready to dive intohome setting but you're not
quite sure where to start, I'myour girl.
I have created an entire libraryof resources just for
homesteaders like you, whetheryou're brand new or experienced,
(21:05):
and you can get complimentaryaccess to this library at
theprairiehomestead.com/grownow, that's it for today's
episode.
Thanks so much for listening.
Please hit subscribe and drop aquick review over on iTunes.
When you have a minute, thatwould mean so much to me and I
(21:27):
can't wait to chat with you onthe next episode of the old
fashioned on purpose podcast.
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