How to make it happen
One of the first and most popular questions I get from folks during a farm tour has nothing to do with these quirky & unique animals themselves. Rather people want to know how I came to not only own an alpaca farm…but most importantly…how I have made farming my livelihood & exclusive occupation.
I really love this question because it opens up a dialog beyond pointing out the cool features of the alpacas fiber alongside their ecological importance on our farm. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from answering “how’d ya become a full time alpaca farmer?” hundreds of times is that — it almost always comes from wide-eyed, aspiring people. And those are my people.
I usually start off by acknowledging that I had a ‘normal job’ once. For 17 years, in fact. I didn’t exactly just wake up and start the farm.
It wasn’t even my ‘dream’ either.
Although the idea of getting alpacas did simply come to me one day, the process of turning them into a business and then into my livelihood most assuredly did not.
When I look back at those early days I noticed that I —
started small
started it on the side, and
started right where I was at.
Small. Perhaps you’re different from me and you’ve got a clear idea of exactly what you want to do or become. No doubt you have big ideas and big dreams, but you don’t need to go full blast from the get-go. This can be tough, especially for the exceptionally passionate.
Bite sized tastes help you digest your idea and ultimately and refine what it is you truly want.
After dabbling in the dream, you might find it doesn’t actually fit. Or as I have experienced, that it sounds a lot cuter in your head and much prettier on Instagram than it is in real life. Trust me, it’s easier to release a dream when you have only invested a small amount of headspace, and that leaves much more room in the tank to be receptive to & pursue what is it that really, really fits you.
Want to write a book? Start with a personal journal that you write in every single day.
Want to become a hot air balloon pilot? Attend a rally and volunteer to be on the crew.
Want to professional RV’er & travel blogger? Rent a camper for a weekend and give it a go.
On the side. It is easy to want it all, right now. Unless you’re independently wealthy, you’re likely going to need to start it on the side. I maintained my full-time job for 5 years while we started the farm business, working up the guts and saving a reserve cushion before I went to part time status.
And it was another year of working part-time before I was confident in my concept & adequately staged to go whole hog.
Some folks believe in the ‘leap and the net will appear’ possibility. That may work for some. Call me old fashioned, but two of the things I can’t wager are — having a roof over my head & food in my belly!
And the reality is — most small business do not survive and often tank within those first couple years. (Buzz kill– when it comes to small farm businesses, failure rates are often much higher & faster!)
But the upside to juggling the dream alongside your current reality is – it will stretch you. In all the good-for-you ways. It’ll highlight your shortcomings, test your patience and force you to make hard choices about where you put your time & resources.
Hint - those are two things that directly impact relationships & day jobs.
But it’s in this struggle that you learn what’s really important to you, and how hard you’re willing to work for it. When passion subsides and the grunt work kicks in, the truth will float to the surface with a quickness.
Carving out time, even if it is a passion, will take effort considering you’ll be doing it in tandem with family life, work life and everything in between. Consistency is key – you have to do it with hardcore regularity because – that’s how full time gigs work! How willing you are to make sacrifices will be indicative.
If it’s difficult in the very small beginning, imagine how much harder it will be when the stakes are higher because it’s your main source of income.
Starting on the side is where you learn that maybe your dream job is really just a hobby. That’s perfectly fine! Or maybe you learn that your dream is something entirely different, or an off-shoot of your original idea?! The goal is to discover that, one way or the other, before putting all your chips in.
Where you’re at. Some folks feel like they need to wait for the New Year, or the start of a new week, before taking that first step, however small it may be. There’s nothing wrong with that – unless that leaves you waiting and wasting precious time (pro tip – it will). Begin the minute you feel inspired, when the moment moves you and the urges are too loud to ignore. If that is a Wednesday in the middle of June, that’s just as excellent as a Monday or January 1st.
Beyond that, starting where you’re at also means starting with what you have. You may think you need (insert whiz-bang cool tool here) in order to begin. I challenge you to use what you already have instead. Once you know you’re going to stick with it, then begin to make those incremental investments.
Start small, start on the side and start right where you are.
Seems simple, right?
Oh yes, as soon as you can get over the first hump - starting.
For many people, starting is quite simply the biggest challenge. I know it was for me. We bought the farm in my early 30s. And by ‘farm’ I mean an old house with acreage because that’s precisely how we viewed it. It was going to be our home; there were no plans to start any kind of business. Never the less, just picking an big old space out in the country ran in stark contract to the brand new house in a subdivision we were leaving.
At first I didn’t want to tell anyone we were doing it…because what would they think? What would they say?
Even though we were not at all planning to “start a farm” in the conventional sense, we were merely just moving out of the subdivision. But that was different than the things people were doing around us, and doing something different left me feeling vulnerable to their thoughts and judgments.
But I heard something once that stuck with me … and fits perfectly here…
No one is thinking more about you & your decisions than you. People aren’t sitting around spending their time critically analyzing the choices you’re making. Trust me.
Get over your own self-imposed hurdles and start.
I can still see how foreheads furrowed and eyebrows bunched. Watching well meaning loved ones attempt to stifle their facial judgments when they heard about my ‘business’ was so uncomfortable. For like…that moment.
And let’s be real here. Some of the best parts of life are about facing discomfort, and letting the discomfort show you what you’re capable of.
For me, that’s being an alpaca shepherdess and cut flower farmer. Those words form the melody to my heart’s song. But let me also tell you, when I left the regular job for good - with its dependable paycheck, ample sick days, 5 weeks paid vacation, 401k and its very rare full-blown pension plan - saying them out loud was not easy.
Truth is, it’s sometimes hard to say our dreams out loud when they go against the grain or aren’t mainstream. Heck, even if they are mainstream! Be ready for that, and don’t waste precious energy and time trying to convince others to believe in your dream.
Spend it making it a reality for yourself instead.
People will either come around or they won’t, and whether they do or don’t is none of your concern.