People often mistakenly believe that having confidence is something that you are born with, a personality trait that you either have or don't. Worse, there is sometimes an embarrassment about being anxious or fearful or having lost confidence. For those who are starting to ride later in life it is sometimes easier to cope with riding fears than the rider who was confident as a youngster and now finds, often with some horror, that it is not at all as carefree as they remembered.
Fear, is a response to perceived danger and on a physiological level it prepares our body to cope with what may come. Fear is ok, fear is a valid physical and mental reaction to things that are happenning to you. Anxiety is more insidious, even when there is nothing specifically to be feared, anxiety is the mind constantly nagging us with apprehension about what MIGHT happen or even constantly reliving a previous fearful moment (in the case of most riders – falling off).
Unfortunately, the additional factor when dealing with animals is that pick up on our levels of confidence. The horse that strides out calmly and is apparently bombproof under a relaxed rider, can become jumpy and unpredictable under a novice rider who lacks confidence. This additional aspect of riding can be hard to deal with if your only support is from non-riding friends or family.
Regardless of the cause of the anxiety, lack of confidence can in itself hinder your progress and put you into a downwards spiral of anxiety, causing bad riding (including making your mount more anxious), causing a fall or scary incident which leads to even less confidence and so on. Breaking this cycle is within the capacity of every rider, if only they treat their confidence levels in the same way as any other skill. It is something that can be learned and it easiest if you have a plan and tackle it step-by-step.
First, let's take a look a few of the things that people who lack confidence commonly tend to do:
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You focus on what is not working and notice every mistake
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Bad experiences are generalised and any good experiences are denied or trivialised
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You compare yourself to others and assume that they don't have any problems with confidence. You often compare yourself to people regardless of your comparitive experience.
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You constantly look into the future and see how far away an end result or your 'ideal' might be.
If we flip even these simple examples of the habits you currently have on their head, we can see how we might begin to modify your confidence levels. In particular the habits of not acknowledging progress made and good experiences or trivialising them are deeply entwined with lack of confidence.
In order to be a confident rider, we must have a bank of good experiences. Each success will build your confidence levels up. Riders who lack confidence, tend to ignore their successes. They wait for giant leaps in ability or feedback from others to validate any success.
So let’s stop that particular habit right now. If you lack confidence, stop comparing yourself to others and take note of YOUR progress. Don’t look back into the dim dark past and torture yourself with what you used to do when you were 12 or 17. Instead, look at what you can do right now and set yourself achievable goals. By achievable, we mean a goal that you can work towards in the foreseeable future, preferably with 1 month.
Now, I immediately know that a bunch of people reading this have just set themselves a ridiculously far fetched goal to achieve. You think you SHOULD be able to achieve them but subconciously you are repeating old patterns of measuring yourself against expectations and setting yourself up to fail. So, try again. Set a goal that you CAN achieve (easily) within 1 month. It is IRRELEVANT how easy this goal is. It is IMPORTANT that you can achieve it and that when you do you say to yourself – “I achieved that”. Only by working in this way will you work step-by-step towards being a confident rider.
Your goals can and should be small, even tiny. If you currently have anxiety about riding your horse out on your own, start by riding to the back gate of your property and then return home. Success!! Celebrate – ok so maybe champagne is a bit over the top but you absolutely MUST say to yourself – ‘
well, done that was really cool. We rode out on our own and everything went really well’. Do not add any ifs or buts about where you got to or that it was a small goal. Take the success and put it into your memory, then move on to the next goal. Tomorrow, maybe ride 10 yards down the road – bank that success too. Remember it is the successes that are important NOT the size of them.
Follow these simple rules and you will begin to recover your confidence
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Be specific about what causes your anxiety and tackle each thing as a specific project.
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Plan your actions to overcome your anxiety in just the same way as you would teach yourself a new physical skill.
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Take Small logical steps that work toward your final goal of eradicting your anxiety.
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Set each goal and plan each action so that you will succeed.
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If you have a little hiccup along the way - look at what you learned from the experience instead of taking it as a personal affront. Move on - don't get hung up on it.
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Acknowledge each success as you go along. What you say to yourself does matter!
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Only ever compare your progress to yourself. If you find this difficult, keep a diary and write notes after each ride. You will be able to look back on this diary and see how you have progressed.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
In part II we will look at some simple tips to help you relax and deal with your anxiety while you ride.
