How You See Yourself Can Destroy Your Chance of Riding Success

We have all been at a show where we've watched someone having a bad day, come out of the arena and then proceed to thrash their horse with a whip, school it relentlessly or hurtle over the practice jump 100 times.  The damage this does to your horse's trust in you, your reputation as a person to those around you and most importantly how you see yourself as a rider and a person is irreversible without significant soul searching.

The results we produce are more than a function of what we do.  Who we are being has a huge impact on the results and progress you make.  Let's have a look at a scenario:

Meet Lucy she loves jumping.  Her horse Sally was doing a round of jumping where she slipped on the approach to a jump sliding into it giving herself a huge fright.  After that she was reluctant to jump and is eliminated after several refusals.  Lucy is embarrassed and humiliated so she takes Sally out to the practice arena where she beat her with the whip and forces her to jump the practice jump 20 times.  Now the route of Sally's issue is fear, how fearful is she now of jumping?  How likely is she to try something she is unsure of again after this experience?

SEE

How do you think Lucy sees herself - as a fair, considerate member of her and Sally's team? Or guilty, highly anxious and angry?  Does Sally see herself as safe and secure or fearful and in danger?

BE

Based on how Lucy and Sally are seeing themselves, how is Lucy being?  That's right - she is being vile, cruel and deeply unfair.  How is Sally being?  That's right, she is defensive and scared.

DO

Due to how Lucy and Sally are seeing their own situations what are they doing?  That's right a disastrous jumping round.

RESULT

They were eliminated....

Being excited, determined, fair and understanding is far more likely to give us a positive result than if we take the same actions being angry, resigned and cynical.

See > Be > Do > Result

 
So what determines who we are being?  It's how we see the world around us.  We will be excited and determined if we relate to the result we are after as being challenging and inspiring.  We will be resigned and cynical if we relate to it as being unreal and impossible.   
 
So what determines how we see the world?  We say it is a function of how you interpret what goes on around us - or the stories you tell yourself around those events.  Some of these we have about ourselves and others support us achieving what we are committed to.  These are powerful stories and they create a way of seeing that gives us constructive and useful ways of being.  Other stories result in us seeing things in a negative way such as the situation Lucy found herself in, and have us being ways that are not constructive such as harming our horses out of our own frustrations, ruining our reputation and destroying how we see ourselves perpetuating these destructive tendencies.  As you can see these are severely limiting stories.

Your way of being is contagious which means what you do affect others around you - so you need to be conscious of the virus you are spreading! The great thing about being is that you can change who you are being at any time to suit the situation.  As riders we need to be the embodiment of what our horse needs at that moment.  So regularly ask yourself "who does my horse need me to be?"  For example, if your riding is going through huge change, ask yourself "what way of being does my horse most need from me now?"  You might come up with calm, inspiring and confident.  

So, who have you been being and what ways of being does your horse need from you?

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