Sometimes it is just hard work.  The long days of summer are over the harvest has been gathered in, the elation of completion is over but still the hard work must go on.  Ploughing is hard, slow and challenging work.  Even today with a big tractor and GPS guidance systems it is not a job for the faint hearted.  The days are getting shorter, the weather is getting worse and next years crops are reliant on good preparation.

The work we do with our teams is so often much more like ploughing than harvesting.  We spend hours of hard graft preparing the ground and ensuring that what is produced is great but we see very little reward for this time and effort.

Long cold days turning over the accomplishments of the past and getting that ground ready for the next big thing take their toll on us all.  so it is important to ensure that you provide yourself with a suitable personal reward for getting though those challenging times.  I know a farmer who books the first week of November off every year so that he knows he has his holidays to look forward to whilst he does the ploughing.  Maybe we need the equivalent after we have successfully delivered whatever we find to be our “ploughing”. It might be completing the annual budget round, completing the annual appraisals, getting the christmas party finished or that big project for that difficult client.

Ploughing is hard but without it the rest of the work we do would be largely pointless so put on your best wellies, harness up the horses and get out into the fields.  Plough straight and true in the knowledge that whilst there might be very little recognition now, you know deep down in your know-er that it is worth it.

Ploughed fields have never looked so good.