United States Eventing Association

Pressure Proof Tip: Power Vowels

If you’re like most riders you’ve probably heard someone say something like, “Your last mistake is your best teacher,” or “if you’re doing everything right you’re doing something wrong because you’re in your comfort zone.” While I agree whole-heartedly with these sentiments, I actually prefer, “Equestrians don’t make mistakes. Mistakes make equestrians.” They make us bolder, braver, and brighter; but only when we develop a positive relationship with our mistakes and respond to them in productive ways.

Here's another quote I like: “We're not supposed to go through life. We’re supposed to grow through life.” But our ability to grow is determined by our experiences, and many of those experiences come in the form of mistakes. When we believe our mistakes are learning opportunities we enable the growth mindset which leads to understanding and improvement, but when we believe our mistakes are missed opportunities we end up feeling like a failure because we failed and then do everything we can to avoid making more, even if it means avoiding challenges, trying new things, or blaming our mistakes on others (insert judge, horse, wind, rain, or footing here).

Unfortunately, while this might protect a fragile ego, it robs us of the the ability to learn the lessons our mistakes were tasked to teach us. In a way, it’s a bit like clipping our own wings. To fly, we have to release what weighs us down, and for many of us it’s the sting and stigma associated with making mistakes.

Luckily there are lots tips, tricks, and techniques that can help us develop a more positive and accepting relationship with mistakes and help us regain the perception of power that mistakes can sometimes steal from us. The first technique is called power vowels because we’re encouraged to accept, examine, identify, own, and understand our mistakes. As you can see, this list forms the acronym A, E, I, O, U, and it’s designed to steer our thinking towards owning and learning from our mistakes (that’s the understanding part) instead of simply feeling bad because they happened.

I watched a fun YouTube video recently that can help explain this concept. In the video a distracted woman walks into the glass wall of a racketball court. Lowering her head in embarrassment she backs up and walks straight into the wall again! Even more embarrassed, she backs up again and walks into it a third time! So, here’s the message: the first time she hit the wall wasn’t a mistake, it was a learning opportunity. We all do that. The second time she hit the wall wasn’t a mistake, it was a missed opportunity. We sometimes do that. But the third time she hit the wall was a mistake! If she just stopped and accepted, examined, identified, owned, and understood the mistake she could have avoided those two extra bumps on her forehead!

A second trick that can help us redefine and strengthen our relationship with mistakes is a unique form of mental imagery. In this technique we simply imagine our mistakes as teachers who live outside of our comfort zone, and if we have the guts to push ourselves out there, we’re bound to bump into them because that’s where they live!

So this month, let's all examine our relationship with mistakes and do everything we can to redefine them as experiences that ultimately help us to fly instead of fall. Remember, “if you’re doing everything right you must be doing something wrong because you’re inside your comfort zone!” This month let's put our egos away and pull out the confidence and courage to go meet those teachers. After all, we can’t learn from them if we’re not willing to go into their classroom!

I hope you enjoyed this month’s Pressure Proof tip and are look forward to more in the future. If you’re a visual learner and would like to take my online and self-paced equestrian sport psychology class just let me know. It’s made-up of 30 short modules consisting of short video, written recaps, and short quizzes and I think you love it! For more information visit https://daniel-stewart-s-school.teachable.com/p/equestrian-sport-psychology.