\u201cThere\u2019s actually three of us, and I think it\u2019s going to grow as time goes on,\u201d Gascoigne told The Country\u2019s Jamie Mackay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s myself, and John Gregan, he\u2019s a farmer from South Canterbury, and Jeff Spark, a farmer from Rangiora, that\u2019s come on board as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most people who travel the length of New Zealand stop at Bluff, but Gascoigne said he\u2019d deliberately decided to go further.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone else stops at Bluff; we\u2019re going over to Stewart Island because I reckon the Stewart Islanders get a bit peeved that they get forgotten all the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo hopefully we\u2019re going to finish up on the 31st of March with a big party at the local hotel in Oban.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Southland farmers battling sodden spring conditions, Gascoigne said he could relate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really, really feel for the guys in Southland because I know what it\u2019s like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in a similar situation 11 years ago \u2013 just that constant wet, you know, pulling on wet weather gear every day and just lying awake at night listening to that rain on the roof.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it just became all-consuming for me; I couldn\u2019t think of anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before long, he found himself caught in a cycle of negative thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned is when you\u2019re so focused on that problem, your brain feeds you more examples of what\u2019s going wrong, and it just becomes a vicious cycle, and you can just spiral downwards \u2013 that\u2019s the situation I found myself in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking back, Gascoigne said the experience taught him some valuable lessons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned about how my brain operates is, these days, there\u2019s still a lot of good stuff happening around, but you just can\u2019t see it, and everything gets on top of you.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe quality of your thoughts is what dictates the quality of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen below<\/p>\n
He found it helpful to look for the good things in life.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might have two people living with exactly the same circumstances and environment, and one\u2019s absolutely hating their life, and one\u2019s absolutely loving it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what I\u2019ve learned to do is just to train my brain to take notice of the good stuff as well, and it just helps put things into perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s shared his observations online and encouraged others to participate through the #3GoodThingsFarmer challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m doing 60 days of noticing three good things each day and taking a photo or video of it, and I\u2019m posting it on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a good habit to get into. I\u2019m doing it for 60 days because it takes 60 days to break a habit or create a habit.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s just all about training those neural pathways in your brain to look after yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gascoigne had advice for those who were social-media-shy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re carrying your phone everywhere, so take a photo or three photos of things that made you happy or you\u2019re grateful for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t have to be big things. Might be just well-fed calves after they\u2019ve had their milk … or just the coffee you have at the start of the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust save three photos on your phone and make yourself accountable that you have to do it each day, and you don\u2019t have to share it with anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThere\u2019s actually three of us, and I think it\u2019s going to grow as time goes on,\u201d Gascoigne told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1070,11783,16659,9539,12026,304371,2082,304370,128003,61895,117,111,43,139,69,1118,3175,61,1297,80],"class_list":["post-618056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-bike","tag-brought","tag-cambridge","tag-content","tag-farmer","tag-farmstrong","tag-for","tag-gascoigne","tag-length","tag-marc","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-rural","tag-to","tag-wellbeing","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}