Eight months into this year and you’d be forgiven for thinking the world is pretty mad. There’s so much uncertainty and many levels. Globally, take your pick on instability and threats that have ripple effects: Russia and The Ukraine; China and the Solomons; The US and its rising inflation; heatwaves, droughts and monsoons in Asia. Grain markets are all over the shop as they respond to these signals and the difficulties associated with logistics.
Nationally, mother nature keeps delivering her gifts of catastrophic destruction – floods in one corner, droughts in others and for the fortunate ones, the right amount of rain at the right times. This season is proving to be a shocker for some and a potential goldmine for others.
Rising interest rates and increased costs add to the concern list. And for football fans, depending on your allegiances, there is another whole level of dram and stress should you wish to absorb it,
The threat of Foot and Mouth Disease and Lumpy Skin Disease on our doorstep, does not help keeping calm on the farm.
Despite all these factors, living and working requires us to make thousands of decisions each day. For the big ticket items, what’s the trick to making quality decisions amidst the madness? Quality thinking!
Some tips to maintain the quality of your thinking include
- Manage stress
- Be mindful of bias
- Maintain perspective
- Focus your thinking on what’s within your control
And when thinking about an unknowable future try Edward Debono’s advice:
In the future, instead of striving to be right at a high cost, it will be more appropriate to be flexible and plural at a lower cost.
If you cannot accurately predict the future, then you must be flexibly be prepared to deal with various possible futures.
So whether it’s harvest planning or livestock management, take time to think about what you’ve got coming up in the next few months, what the possible scenarios are and what the implications could be. Doing some quality thinking now, could be a great investment of time and energy.
Good luck.
