United States Eventing Association

When we arrive at the barn we arrive at a place that's much more than just fences, fields, and friends; we arrive at our happy place. The place we go to when we need a little break from all the chaos and craziness of a fast-paced life that can sometimes leave us feeling a bit frazzled, fried, and frustrated. Unlike other sporting venues like courts, rinks, and pools, however, our happy place isn't defined by the location itself, but by the relationships we build with our team, trainers, and horses there.

But what happens when our happy place becomes a little less happy? What happens when our thoughts turn from friends and fun to fears, falling, and failing? What happens when our thoughts turn from delighted to disappointed or from joy to jealousy? What happens when looking forward to a ride turns into looking down on ourselves? What happens when our happy place turns into your crappy place?

Teaching ourselves to look beyond the problems, struggles, and challenges that are an ever-present part of our sport—while staying focused on the silver-linings and lessons-learned—isn’t just important to being happy in our happy place, it’s also highly connected to the amount of success we’ll experience there. In fact, studies show that we’re up to 34% better at everything we do when we do it happily (as compared to everything we do when we’re feeling tense, frustrated, nervous, intimidated, etc.).

This means that we’re 34% more likely to ride well when we’re enjoying the process, but it also means that we’d be well-advised to teach ourselves how to enjoy the setbacks as much as the comebacks and the struggles as much as the successes.

Inviting joy and exuberance into our sport is what social scientists refer to as a happiness-advantage, and their work has shown an overwhelming relationship between success and happiness. Obviously we’re happy when we're successful, but they’ve proven that the reverse is also true, we’re more successful just because we’re happy. The rational for the happiness-advantage and its relationship to success lies in how our brains connect feelings of happiness to performance.

It works like this:

We allow ourselves to laugh and smile and genuinely feel happy.

Our brains perceive these emotions as a sign we’re safe and happy.

Our brains release endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin (natural antidepressants).

We become more relaxed, confident, courageous, and optimistic.

Our performance improves which gives us another shot of these feel-good hormones.

On the other hand, here’s how our brains connect feelings of doubt, frustration, and anxiety to performance:

We feel nervous and anxious (think feeling a fear-of-failure or being watched).

Our brain thinks we’re facing a threat (why else would we be nervous?).

Our brains releases the fight or flight stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline.

These hormones make us tense, tight, and anxious (ready to fight or flight).

Our performance suffers because we ride better when we’re confident, not tense and tight.

As equestrians we’ve always been taught to take our sport seriously. We should all take stable management and horse-care very seriously. We should all take time-management and safety very seriously. But I also strongly believe that we should take happiness and joy just as seriously! Yes, learning to connect movements together in a dressage test or connecting fences together in a jump course are keys to success in our sport, but learning to connect happiness to our performance is just as important.

I’ve always said, “If you're too busy to laugh, you’re just too busy,” so this month let’s all regain the smile and the love of the horse and love of the sport, and don’t be surprised if you might just replace a little of that stress with a lot more success!

I hope you enjoyed my Pressure Proof tip and will consider joining me this summer in one of my Equestrian Athlete Training camps! Four days of equestrian sport psychology, fitness, leadership, nutrition, yoga, and more! For more information visit https://www.pressureproofathlete.com.