My personal growth journey

Personal development comes from taking responsibility. I learned this and much more during my personal growth journey at the ranch.

Before coming to the ranch, I filled in the Application Questionnaire. In this questionnaire there are multiple great questions about how you think and how you would do certain things. One of the questions I had difficulty with is one which level of leadership I operate. I answered that when I am allowed to take leadership, I would try to lead by example. There are no wrong answers in the Application Questionnaire, but this answer did show that I had a lot of room for growing in my leadership qualities and personal growth. My answer also showed that it had more to do with taking initiative and responsibilities than it had to do with the leadership itself.

So since I have arrived on the ranch I have been taking more responsibility and initiative each week. It started simple, with being in charge of the dinner of that evening, then being in charge of welcoming the guests and doing map orientations. It was scary taking on the responsibilities, because I was afraid to make mistakes. However, without taking any initiative or taking risks, I would not have come to Canada and realizing that made me understand that when you don’t take initiative, responsibilities or risks, you are missing out. So from that point on, I started taking on more of the responsibilities at the ranch, which got me involved in more of the opportunities that were presented for me at the ranch.

One big step I made in my personal growth was when I planned and took the first aid course. I took the course because I believe that when you are responsible for your guests, you need to be able to handle an emergency. I hope to never have to use the first aid course, but at least I know what to do when the worst happens. This was a big step in my personal growth because it is a huge responsibility to be one of the few people to know first aid in a business that is so remote.

Right now my responsibilities have broadened to be even bigger than doing the map orientations for guests, for example, I took on the responsibility of making the schedules for staff, for when to do the cooking and cleaning and planning where everyone will sleep. Now I am even in charge of the ranch and taking care of all kinds of different tasks when needed. With all these responsibilities, leadership soon followed as I had to mentor other people in the many different aspects of the ranch. Mentoring, I soon realized is also a form of responsibility and leadership.

I have gone through a lot of personal growth during my time at the ranch. I am a different person than I was 10 weeks ago, when I first started. I went from someone who was looking at other people to hand me tasks, to someone who takes initiative and responsibilities and is confident in her abilities. This was only possible through the different opportunities that I got to take part in and some of the challenges I faced at the ranch. Although it might seem like I am done growing, I’ve still got 3-4 weeks left at the ranch and I believe that I will grow more during those weeks and I will look back at this story and be able to write more about how I grew in such a short time.

Suzanne