Horse Riders Are Athletes

training
More consistent results
Consistent aids empathetic riding
Stronger relationships with our horses
Manage Your State of Mind
The first step is to start thinking of yourself as an athlete and describing yourself to others as one. Even this small change will start to influence how you perceive yourself and begin to affect your choices around selfcare. Working on our identity and state of mind is best done in small bits over time and can be worked into any schedule. It is less about doing things differently and more about thinking about things differently. Like all changes this will take awareness and practice and lots of repetition but the change will happen if you work at it.
These exercises will get you started on finding a helpful state of mind within yourself.
Exercise 1 Learn to centre yourself before your ride.
Pause and take five breaths before you mount. Pull the air into your stomach by inhaling through your nose. Hold it there for five seconds and exhale fully making sure the exhale is longer than your inhale. Ask yourself
Exercise 2 Shift your mindset.
When you hit a setback frame the struggle within the bigger picture of our progress. Instead of wallowing in the feeling of failure always tell yourself you can do it just not yet. Adding yet is a small but powerful way to shift our brain from wallowing to problem solving. There is always a way to excel in the things we find difficult if we are willing to work hard. However if we see our failure as proof that we will never be the riders we want to be then we block our brain from figuring out how to improve. The most important belief we can hold is the belief that we can improve at anything as long as we are willing to put in the work.
The best part of investing in yourself as an athlete is learning how to manage your state of mind. This will result in a feeling of having more time and mental freedom in the future. Think of it as a time investment. If we can learn to manage our emotional reactions and increase our adaptability in challenging situations we will recover faster from setbacks spend less time spinning in anxiety and selfdoubt and enhance the quality of all of our time spent with our horses.