I want to share a story about a friend who called and wanted to chat about two experiences involving interactions with others.
One was that she’d been a helper on the cow crew at a show, turning out cattle for people boxing.
To make this story short, she had a great experience doing that. She showed for the first time, too, which was great. She was feeling good and excited.
Later, she read a social media comment, and one person was super critical of the show, especially the cow committee. The person said the cow crew didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t let the cows out at the right time.
She was disappointed and upset, which turned her whole idea of her weekend upside down. Now, remember that situation.
Then, she had another situation a few days later where she was picking up some hay. A guy started—it didn’t matter if it was a guy or a woman—but started quizzing her.
He was talking at her, not with her.
Both situations bring up a similar perspective for me.
When other people are hurtful – the work we must do is always within ourselves.
We can step back and reflect on what we thought about the situation.
At the show, my friend couldn’t do a part of a task she had never learned.
At the same time, we can allow others to be who they are without expending our energy, making them wrong, and going through all that.
We can keep returning to our hearts and learning from the situation, and then we can let it go.
Regarding the second situation, I know it’s time to change something when I don’t have a genuine conversation with somebody (as in an honest exchange of ideas).
I can change the subject or find an opportunity to step away gracefully and not engage in the conversation any longer, especially when I don’t feel heard, and there’s no back-and-forth of ideas.
Again, it always comes back to us.
It always comes back to doing the work within ourselves, allowing others to be who they are, learning what we can take from the exchange, and being confident in who we are.
When I was a consultant for a client’s broodmare program, my boss often said, “Barb, one of the secrets to success is you need to keep showing up.”
He went on to explain that, whether it’s business or personal, investing time in attending events can open doors.
We position ourselves to take advantage of opportunities, observe trends, become more informed, and make new friends.
Magic can happen, and worlds can open up.
Depending on the situation, showing up might feel adventurous or intimidating, but my client was right. Unique experiences happen when we ‘get out there’, and you never know what might happen.
Recently, I had the honor of giving three presentations on horseback and two seminars onstage at the Equine Affaire Expo in West Springfield, Massachusetts.
It was great to see long-time friends (notice I don’t call them old – LOL).
I so enjoyed the folks who rode with me. For the first time, I met some impressive professionals, observed trends, and saw how much the digital world has expanded and impacted us.
I enjoyed visiting a part of the US I don’t often see. It’s beautiful.
It reminded me of my former client’s consistent suggestion to ‘keep showing up.’
It reminded me to say ‘yes’ to opportunities to go, learn, be vulnerable, and see what I see.
I’m amazed by the connections I made and by the potential for more adventures.
Now, I’m passing this simple advice on to you. Keep showing up. If you’re inclined to do something, go for it.
When we venture out and about, it’s refreshing to the mind and spirit, and you never know what’s waiting for you just around the corner.
In my last article, I shared the story of the girl who did a month’s worth of practice in 6 minutes! In it, Daniel Coyle explained (from his book The Talent Code) how that happened. In the Talent Code he explains how deep practice, ignition and master coaching cause accelerated learning, all of which we can apply to improve our technical riding skills as well as increase our feel and timing.
Deep practice means slowing down, making errors, correcting them and moving through the sequence again. To me it means we have to be willing to embrace mistakes and learn from them rather than beat ourselves up when we fail. Then have the patience to start again from the beginning.
Deep practice also utilizes the “chunking” method that Barb and I teach at our high-performance clinics. It’s a version of what the girl did who was learning to play the clarinet that helped her do a month’s practice in 6 minutes.
Chunking is dividing what you’re trying to learn into chunks or segments. Let’s say for instance a reined work pattern could be divided up into maneuvers, each one being a “chunk”. You develop the skills necessary to perform the circles first. Then as you execute a circle you work on making it round, hitting the middle etc. If you miss the middle, you’d stop working on the circle and work a bit more on steering your horse, being more accurate with your arena placement (ie correcting the mistake). Then start at the beginning with the circle and aim more carefully for the middle. If you were successful, you could start on your big fast, but if not, you’d work on your steering some more, then start at the beginning again. Then maybe you start to increase your speed for your big fast, your steering is good, you hit the middle, and all goes well until you try to slow down. You’d stop the pattern and work on slowing down from different speeds, collection etc. Then, you guessed it start back at the beginning again.
Each time you do this, you reinforce on a deeper level the skills that you’ve been building on. After you get the circles/figure 8 done, that’s one big chunk and it should be able to perform it very well.
Now you’re ready to work on the next chunk, say rundowns and stops. After you have all the chunks very solid and easily done, you put them together. Once again, if the wheels start to come off anywhere, you work on that skill and start at the beginning again.
This creates deep learning from deep practice and you and your horse will own these skills forever in a much shorter time than you think. In fact, he proved that it is the fastest way to gain mastery of any skill. In my next article, I’ll give you his take on ignition and then master coaching. If this intrigues you, you can read the Talent Code (available on Amazon).
Hey, it’s Barb, and I want to talk to you today about an idea that’s really easy to understand, but it’s not always easy to do.
It’s called unstoppable momentum.
I discovered a woman, Marissa Murgatroyd, who does a lot of teaching online.
She has a type of ‘formula’ that makes a lot of sense to me.
It’s the idea of creating unstoppable momentum.
The part of the path she proposes has the same ideas I’ve experienced and taught, but I really like the way she combined them.
The idea is that we get very specific about what it is that we want – which is a vision.
Then, we set ourselves up for constant wins. (This is a major piece of the puzzle that is easy to brush off or overlook.)
Thirdly, we sustain motivation over time by acknowledging within ourselves, bigger and bigger wins, into what she calls, unstoppable momentum.
There are three steps.
The first step is that you imagine your future self becoming who you intend to become every step of the way of your learning.
Your future self is doing what you imagine, not just analytically, but feeling it.
You see in your mind whatever step you’re working on, and you add it to the vision of a becoming a beautiful rider.
This first step uses this idea of your future self in a very creative way.
The second step is celebrating the things you do well.
Now, again, this is something that I’ve talked about a lot and it’s easy to think, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Barb, okay, I did that pretty good, but did you see what I messed up over there?” 😊
This is a powerful tool because, besides the fact that we get more of what we recognize and appreciate, we get excited every time we allow ourselves to acknowledge each little thing we do well as a win.
You get into the habit of thinking about small wins and being delighted by each little step. This builds confidence.
Here’s the third step.
As you develop these first two steps you start to get a feeling of certainty that nothing is ever going to get in your way, as you keep growing and learning because you are focused on and celebrating getting better and better.
You experience an uninterrupted flow of experience – wins – corrections – experience – wins – corrections.
You don’t revert back to, “I don’t know if I can do this.” You don’t sweep over the whole thing as in “That was horrible. That was great.”
That’s because you have the vision of yourself as a beautiful rider in whatever it is that you do – and you actively see how it’s happening.
You visualize what you’re about to do. You take the wins and you celebrate them.
You have unstoppable momentum.
So that’s what I have for you today.
It’s a little different version of a lot of the things that we’ve talked about in the past, but I really love the way she put it together.
Have a great week. And as always, you know, I love to hear from you.
I was rereading the Talent Code for the 4th time last week and in the introduction, I remembered one of the most fascinating parts of the whole book. He was talking about “talent hotbeds”. These are places where for no apparent reason, fantastic athletes magically bloom in large numbers. This happened in the Dominican Republic with baseball players in the 1950’s, in South Korea with women golfers in the late 1990’s, and even in the Renaissance when Florence, Italy produced an explosion of genius! Daniel decided to study where this extraordinary talent came from and how did it grow?
He began by studying a 13 year old girl who was studying the clarinet and didn’t appear particularly talented. In her 6 minute video, she was classified at “musical mediocrity.” (How depressing!) She lacked a “good ear”, sense of rhythm, and her motivation was subpar. Her strongest reason for practicing was because “I’m supposed to”. What was crazy was that in 5 minutes and 54 seconds, she accelerated her learning speed by 10x, and she didn’t even know it.
She was trying to play “Golden Wedding”. She played 7 notes and stopped, stared at the music sheet, and sung that phrase. She then started over from the beginning, making it a few notes further before missing a note, patching in the fix, backtracking and starting again. That time the notes had some verve and feeling. When she finished that phrase, she stopped for 6 long seconds, replayed it in her mind as she fingered the clarinet, leaned forward, then started again from the beginning.
She played that phrase again and again, each time adding spirit and rhythm to it. She was creating a blueprint in her mind, fixing the errors and fitting parts into the whole (chunking). This was a highly targeted, error focused process. The scaffolding was being built and a new quality was growing in the girl. It was not talent created by genes. It was six minutes of an average person entering a magically productive zone where more skill was created with each passing second. This targeted practice was causing accelerated learning.
What they later learned was when we fire our circuits in the right way, our neural insulator called myelin responds by wrapping layers of insulation around the neural circuit, with each new layer adding a bit more skill and speed. The thicker it gets, the faster and more accurate our movements and thoughts become (think riding a bicycle). Everyone can grow it though it grows more swiftly in childhood. It’s indiscriminate, and its growth enables all manner of skills. The more time and energy you put into the right kind of practice, the longer you stay in the zone and the more skill and speed you gain.
So, back to the hotbeds of talent where world class soccer players, violinists, artists, tennis and golf players, even skateboarders developed and flourished. They all got better by gradually by improving timing, speed and accuracy, by honing neural circuitry and growing more myelin. There are 3 parts to this- deep practice, ignition and master coaching. Each element is essential to creating skill. Combine them, even for 6 minutes and things start to rapidly change.
I’m going to delve deeper into this in my next few articles because it’s so relevant to how we can all become skilled with our horses and grow our timing and feel which before was believed that you either had it or you didn’t. You can absolutely grow both! Great news isn’t it??
Our journeys of riding and showing our horses have hills and valleys of success and empowerment – and then we don’t feel so strong!
At times, we feel discouraged. Maybe something happens to our horse – all kinds of things can happen.
In his research, Daniel Coyle discovered the idea of sustaining motivation.
It means discovering and practicing ways to stay encouraged and motivated during the ups and downs.
He says a mix of passion, perseverance, and self-discipline keeps us moving forward.
This ability to encourage ourselves makes all the difference in growing and enjoying our time with horses.
We’re not born with this instinct. It’s developed.
That’s a critical point. It’s the ability to lift ourselves by our bootstraps during hard times and find a way in, around, or through challenges.
It’s also a skill that separates people.
When you think about the people you admire the most, aren’t they the ones who keep going and overcome incredible challenges?
I want to share some tools and mindsets with you about sustaining motivation.
Could you revise the ‘why’ you ride? This is critical to your joy. Your reasons keep you juiced (: so to speak because they’re so personal – and not dependent upon results.
Another mindset is consistent gratitude.
You would agree that we are lucky and blessed to ride these beautiful horses. We’re fortunate to have the means and the ability to do what we do.
It’s pure joy – the people, the adventures, and the support we get from others and can return to our friends.
This next idea is from Coyle’s The Little Book of Talent – think like a gardener and work like a carpenter.
That idea makes so much sense to me because I love plants. It’s a stretch to say I’m a gardener. LOL
But I feel good when I watch over them and spend time with them. It’s relaxing and soulful for me.
The idea is that with gardening, you’re always getting the big picture:
How does the landscape look?
How are individual plants doing?
What must I do next to fill in or expand the garden?
Working like a carpenter is more specific, as it means being extraordinarily methodical and measuring your work. Carpenters put in a lot of hours to do the meticulous little things.
Sustaining motivation is about the big picture and then working on our next steps to keep building our skills. We make a plan and then work strategically and intently on it. We’re invested!
Next, our spirit needs nourishment. We know we need to eat food to nourish our body and hydrate.
The same goes for our souls. Wherever you draw inspiration from – lap it up.
Make time for it.
It may be your faith.
Perhaps it’s from the stories of people who overcame great challenges in their discipline or life.
Other sources are podcasts, books, or daily inspirations.
Wherever you get your inspiration, make it a part of what you do consistently – it matters.
Then there’s Angela Duckworth’s Grit Test online. It’s fun to take and can help us see the components of grit – where we’re strong and where we can choose which resilience parameters to improve.
I believe in you and wish you joy and belief in yourself.
Keep loving, learning, growing, and having a blast with your beautiful horse.
_________
MINDSETS FOR SUSTAINING MOTIVATION:
Keep coming home to your heart – your passion, why, and values to so appreciate the extraordinary opportunity to ride a horse,
I heard a gem of wisdom this past week that I’d like to share with you,
It’s the idea that we’re all already heroes in our own lives.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t normally think of myself as a hero!
But, here’s the point the speaker made.
We’ve all already been through so much in our lives. We don’t have to do anything more to be enough – about anything.
Wherever we are, wherever we’re starting from right now is absolutely enough.
And this is a part I really love…
If we want to do more, explore more, and learn more, go for a riding title, then we absolutely can.
But it’s because it’s exciting and joyful for us – not because we have to toprove our worthiness.
It’s not because there’s some imaginary mandate hanging over our heads, saying we need to do more to be enough or prove anything in any area of our lives.
It’s in our human nature to want to keep getting better, learning, andcreating. But it’s a choice. There’s nothing that we have to do or be in order to prove our worthiness—be enough, have enough, or look good enough.
I just wanted to share that little tidbit with you and let you know that we’re going to do this workshop.
This is a short and sweet tidbit, but to me it went right to the heart to set us free to be authentic, live what we love and let go of the stories we tell ourselves about what we ‘need’ or ‘have to do’.
I’ve been reminded on multiple fronts these past couple of weeks about the concept of ‘grit’.
It has come to mind, through inspiration from my heroes, personally and professionally and attending the Cowgirl Spring Roundup at Paws Up Resort in Montana this past week.
Grit and resilience are the heart of never giving up on something you love, no matter the obstacles.
I want to share some words from Daniel Coyle in his book, The Little Book of Talent.
“Talent and greatness are grown – not born…
Developing talent is like taking a cross-country hike. You will encounter challenges; you will hit snags, plateaus, and steep paths; motivation and progress will ebb and flow.
To sustain progress, one must be flexible one moment and stubborn the next, deal with immediate obstacles while staying focused on the horizon, and be a resourceful traveler.
Grit is the mix of passion, perseverance, and self-discipline that keeps us moving forward despite the obstacles.
It’s not flashy, and that’s precisely the point.
In a world where we’re frequently distracted by sparkly displays of skill, grit makes the difference in the long run.”
Fuel your spirit and keep going for your dream if it’s something you’re pulled to do – and you love.
The world needs you!
Have a great week and if you’d like to make a comment, please hit reply and let me hear from you.
I have many things that excite me about everyday living – like ‘coincidences’ that lead to outcomes I never could have imagined and learning new things.
Recently, through a mutual friend, I met Dr. Stephanie Burns, an Australian human behavior specialist specializing in adult learning and the human brain and body.
Among the many things I learned from Dr. Burns is a simple yet profound ‘hack’ for sustaining motivation.
But first, as a little ‘background, a great motivator to get humans ‘going’ toward a dream, in the beginning, is the evidence that someone they relate to has done it before them.
It’s the ole, “If they can do it, I can do it!”
That’s a great starter. It’s the well-known “I can!”
The challenge is that specific self-talk repeated “I can. I can” indefinitely doesn’t last long-term by itself because “I can” gives us an image of precisely what we want, and nothing else will do!
Instead, once we believe we can, if we say to ourselves, “I’m not sure how far I’ll go – let’s see,” and we work at the goal diligently day after day, our motivation is fueled because we’re excited to see how far we really can go.
Perhaps it will be further than the original dream – who knows? Let’s see!
So that’s what I have for you today – a power-packed Mighty Mouse inner voice phase that encourages and challenges you simultaneously.
I know you can go for your dreams – and I’m wondering just how far that will be!
For some reason, a few ago, I was going through a challenging time.
There was a lot going on, including the weather (I know, any of you Northerners or Mountain folks have no sympathy for our Southern winter complaints (-:)
Business-wise, there were simultaneously challenging and exciting things happening. One exciting development is launching a new Master Class for Cutting. I always love these classes. They are some of my greatest joys. My favorite part is interacting with the students I get to know, and of course, I always learn, too.
On the challenging side, this past week included empathy for a friend going through the hell of a lifetime.
So I was feeling super vulnerable, and fortunately, Brene Brown came to mind. It had been quite a while since I had watched her videos or re-read her books, so I got on YouTube and was grateful to be there.
Her words were healing.
I remember her saying before that whatever makes us vulnerable makes us beautiful, but I couldn’t remember much more detail than that. When we feel vulnerable, we feel raw inside; sharing it is always good with someone we trust.
In the video, she was talking about how if we fear someone discovering our weaknesses, it can cause us to throw up our guard. That’s certainly not the stuff of connection. 😉
Brene also talked about how vulnerability is the birthplace of positive emotions.
I’ve always loved positive emotions (who doesn’t), and I know and aspire to live their joy and power. Positive emotions are like the heartbeat of life to me.
It was enlightening to reflect on the fact that without vulnerability, there is no love, empathy, or, in some cases, the need to innovate.
Somehow, those videos were exactly what I needed.
I’ve always believed that in difficulties, we can find our greatest gifts. (It’s the same when we ride a horse. A place of weakness is our customized place to improve.) But now, I see vulnerability as a shared emotion and a powerhouse for connection. When we open our hearts to others, whether it’s with horses or people, those moments of sharing are powerful movers of the heart.
With sharing comes connection. And connection is what we all crave.
So there you go. That’s my vulnerability experience of the week. It feels good to have rediscovered Brene’s wisdom and realize that feeling vulnerable is part of the human experience – albeit a dark feeling – but beautiful light is on the other side.
Vulnerability is something! It isn’t easy, but as we have the courage to walk through it, we discover some of life’s most precious gifts and beauty.
