Dealing With Jealousy

Riding can be a tough sport. It takes a big commitment to be successful and a certain amount of money as well. So its no surprise that the proverbial green eyed monster can make an appearance in the course of your riding career.
You might be envious of some of your fellow riders the ones with expensive mounts endless training time and access to the best coaches.
In a sport environment the consequences of jealousy can be quite costly. Every time you have a jealous thought you are breaking your focus you are giving away energy to another competitor and thereby strengthening their advantage. That doesnt sound like a good idea does it?
Even if you are prone to jealous thoughts you can learn to tame the monster. Jealousy doesnt have to run your life or your sport
Identify your hot thoughts
Chances are there will be a certain object or objects of your jealous thoughts. There will also be identifiable dialogue that goes with your shades of green. Chris a hardworking junior competitor often suffered from strong feelings of jealousy toward several fellow riders he barely knew. Every time I saw them all I could think about was how they had it so much better than me. Their horses were from Europe only the best. Already trained. And here I was working my butt off on green horses that werent ready to do those same divisions even though I could do them as a rider. I was just so mad that I didnt have a horse that could take me where I wanted to go.
Chriss jealousy often manifested in bouts of anger which frustrated his coach and sometimes scared his horses. He needed to get his emotions under control before they threatened his career.
Chris was able to identify several hot thoughts which got his emotions rolling
They are going to get ahead and Im not.
I wont ever be able to ride in the divisions I want.
Its not fair they have all the advantages.
I might as well give up. Its useless.
The more Chris repeated these statements to himself the more helpless he felt. He soon realized that he was feeling insecure and scared about not meeting goals that were very important to him. He loved to ride and at home in training he felt very competent. But the minute he went into a competitive environment he felt as though he was shrinking and his efforts were