United States Eventing Association

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.

Most people believe skill development is linear, meaning we start from nothing and gradually improve from there. They think the first point on the learning-graph starts low on the left and rises steadily upwards to the right from there. While this seems logical, it’s not actually true. The real graph of skill acquisition looks more like a slight up-slope followed by a plateau, a pit, and a peak.

We all do our best to respect ourselves and believe in our abilities, but sometimes it can be a bit harder than we might expect. As a matter of fact, it’s been proven that we respect and believe in others more than we respect and believe in ourselves!

When something breaks you throw it away. After all, it’s broken. It’s no longer perfect. From cups to cars we seem to let the value of things drop to zero as soon as they get a bit busted. But there’s a 400-year-old Japanese tradition called Kintsugi that might provide us with another alternative.

This month we’re going to talk about a subject you’re likely familiar with and a few others that might just surprise you a bit. We’re going to talk about the growth mindset: the belief that talent can grow with time and experience; that skills are just starting-points that can be enhanced with the right amount of effort and practice.

For the past few months, we’ve been talking about the power of our words and how we can use those words to stop the flow of negative thoughts and replace them with more positive alternatives. When I teach clinics, I often remind riders that words are good, but they’re only as good as the actions they create...and that’s where this month's Pressure Proof tip comes in. Learning to believe in our ability to think in a positive way and take responsibility for our actions so that we can change unwanted feelings of hopeless or powerless into feelings of hopeful and powerful. This month, let’s continue talking about how we can use our words to evolve from worriers into warriors.

Last month we began a series of Pressure Proof tips dedicated to the idea that positive thinking is one of largest contributing factors to riding success: competitive, recreational, educational, or otherwise. This month we’ll continue talking about how what’s happening between your ears is just as important as what’s happening below them and that what’s happening below them is actually always being controlled by what’s happening between them.

No one’s perfect (nope, not you either) so it’s just a matter of time before you make a mistake, mess up or miss an opportunity. There’ll come a time when you do everything right but it’ll still go wrong, or a time when you do your very best but it won’t be good enough. Regardless of the mistake, mess-up, or missed opportunity you’ll always be able to make up and move on as long as you’re mindful of the words you’re using to describe that experience . . . and this is where verbal erasers come in.

Curiosity and inquisitiveness are signs of resilience because mentally tough riders continually seek answers to questions that might otherwise bother them. They continually ask the kind of questions that help them to replicate successful efforts; while also asking the kind of questions that help them to learn from, and avoid replicating unsuccessful ones. These self-directed questions become one of their greatest assets because they provide them with the valuable feedback needed to grow from every experienced, both good and bad. Without these questions, much of the learning that learning opportunities can deliver are simply left undelivered. In the world of sports psychology, it’s kind of like the opposite of Amazon Prime!

If you’re like most people there’s a good chance you made a New Year's resolution this month, and if you’re like most there’s a really good chance you’re going to have a hard time hanging onto it past the beginning of February!