Winning the Mental Game of Horsemanship

The mental game of horsemanship is arguably the most difficult part of the journey. Most of you have high goals for yourselves as trainers. You constantly want to get to that next level.  It's important to remember that you can’t succeed at a high level unless you learn to fail big. Once you accept that, you will be able to recover from those failures much quicker. It can be easy to fall into a comparison trap with the people who already have the result you are working toward. The success you see is not because they never struggled. It’s because you’re seeing the result of their struggle. They’ve already been through it. Your brain is wired to keep you from doing something you're not comfortable doing. You have to trick you brain into letting you do things that you don’t know the outcome of. Even something as simple as getting out of bed in the morning...it’s a mind game. So, play it. Count backwards from 5…4, 3, 2, 1—and, get out of bed. Committing to small habits of discomfort will propel you to that next level.  Throughout your journey, there will be many influential moments, experiences, and people. Some of these will be positive, and some will be negative. You will have setbacks. That’s a guarantee. You may have someone in your life who doesn’t understand what you’re working toward. You might even have someone tell you that you can’t do it. But, there’s one thing I want you to always remember: The only person that has the power to stop you from being successful is yourself. At the end of the day, progress in your horsemanship journey comes down to one question: "Are you willing to commit?" Are you willing to commit to doing the things it takes to get to the next level? It’s easy to do the things it takes to make a great horse, but it’s also easy not to do them. The boring, monotonous tasks aren’t always the fun part of the journey, but they’re by far the most necessary. Consistent action creates results.