When poults (baby turkeys) arrive on our farm, they are less than 24 hours old. They are cute, hungry, thirsty, and not very smart. In addition, they are top heavy thanks to their full yolk sacs and skinny legs. For about the first 7 days of their lives, it is not uncommon for them to spend a great deal of time flipped onto their backs, kicking their spindly, little legs like crazy, and looking up instead of ahead.

Appropriately, we, in the turkey industry, call the flipped-over poults, “flippers.”

A flock with a lot of “flippers” takes more time to care for because we spend so much time walking through the range house setting the spinning birds right-side up. Often they flip back over or a stampede of other poults pushes them prone again, but we still work to set them all in the right direction.

I feel like many of us are “flippers” in our lives because we allow the weight of our overthinking and worry to upend our outlooks or the pressure of trying to go with the flock to capsize our cause. Just like the extra time it takes to care for a building full of “flippers,” we are too panicked about our problems and freaking out instead of finding ways to fix them. We spend too much time failing to find the solution to turning things around in our lives.

If we want to fix our status as “flippers,” we have to slow down, look for reasonable solutions, and shift the weight of our focus (and our bodies). Sometimes the process of putting ourselves in the right direction is too huge task to take on our own, so it’s okay to chirp for help. (The baby turkeys do it.)

Yes, we might find ourselves knocked right back down, but getting things turned around is always an option.

We can learn a lot from our fluffy, little friends and find inspiration in their situations. Similarly, we can flip things around in our lives, if we take time to look around at our options instead of obsessing about all that is hanging over our heads.

Give yourself a chance to stop spinning your wheels. Ask yourself, “What can I do to start turning things around?” Put your Intentergy in seeking that solution and work on where you need to be, and I am certain you will find yourself moving forward.

By: Melanie A. Peters

P.S. This post is my attempt to turn things around and get back to writing instead of spinning my wheels with unproductive thoughts.