Stress comes from the unknown and comfort comes from the plan

Stock Journal Feature - May 2025

This is a season that just refuses to play fairly for livestock producers.  A tough 2024 season has been quickly followed by little to no rainfall to kick off the first four months of 2025.  Ask any livestock producer through these regions “what they have been up to” and the answer is simple – “feeding stock”.  But as the year progresses, fodder is becoming increasingly difficult to source, and more expensive.  

Farmers are continually being faced with decisions to be made around who to keep, what to feed, how much to feed, and ultimately, how long can we afford to keep feeding.  None of these are straight forward decisions, and their complexity can lead to a state of “decision paralysis”.  Decision paralysis is where the decisions are too overwhelming, and so rather than make any decision which may prove to be wrong, the person involved makes no decision at all.  It is simple human reaction when things become very difficult, to just bury your head and hope that everything will be okay.  Unfortunately that doesn’t often end well.  

It is critical under the current seasonal conditions that farm owners and managers continue to be proactive in their management and decision making.  While the fear of making a wrong decision can be overpowering, the reality is that we can make one simple change to our mindset to help free us of that burden.  That is to understand that we make good or bad decisions at the time, and we can only ever find out with the benefit of hindsight whether or not those decisions prove to be right or wrong.  

Good proactive decision making is about surrounding yourself with all of the best information and evidence to make good informed decisions.  For example can use weather forecasts, fodder prices, livestock prices and pasture assessments to inform our decisions about whether or not we should de-stock in some shape or form (reduce stocking rate, or de-stock entirely).

If all of the evidence suggests that to be a good decision, and by some unforeseen miracle it pours rain and the season turns around two weeks later, it doesn’t change the fact that it was a good decision at the time.  It simply proved to be wrong with the benefit of hindsight.  Good decisions can prove to be wrong, but they were still a good decision at the time.  This is about having conviction in your decision making.  Not stubbornness or pigheadedness, but conviction.  Collect the evidence, make the decision, and live comfortably with the fact that you made a good decision at the time.  

While a crystal ball would be great right now, I haven’t found one that works, so in the meantime life is about setting plans and making plenty of good evidence-based decisions.   If there is one thing that I have learned in my lifetime, it is that stress always comes from the unknown, and comfort comes from the plan.  Surround yourself with the right people, share your concerns, workshop your decisions to help you build the conviction in your decisions.  

None of the decisions right now are easy, and plenty of them may prove to be wrong.  As humans we focus way too much of our energy on those that prove wrong, and quickly move on from all of the decisions that we got right.   When this season does finally break, and we have livestock grazing green feed again, lets promise ourselves to look back at all of these tough decisions that had to be made, and pat ourselves on the back for all of those that we got right, rather than just beat ourselves up over the ones that proved to be wrong.  If they were good informed decisions at the time, they are still good decisions, and we would make them again under the same circumstances.

Surround yourself, back yourself, and make good decisions with conviction.  You will find it much less stressful than sticking your head in the sand.