As I was gaining my courage back after my accident, there were many things I learned along the way from having setbacks. My fear was rearing. One beautiful warm day and I was riding Taika in the indoor arena, getting her ready for her first jumper show, she was trotting along in a gorgeous feeling trot and all of a sudden, she reared and came down bucking for about 5 seconds and then she trotted off like nothing happened. She was fine for the rest of the ride, but I was shaken.
This was a setback for me and helped me find some new ways of preventing more setbacks. Here are my favorite three tips to preventing setbacks:
1. Analyze the root cause. The easy answer would be the rear and bucks but that would not be the right answer. I rode that no problem. The root of the problem was that I had not healed my fear of rearing. When you have a setback, take the opportunity to analyze what happened and get to the root of your fear. That will lead you to a solution. For me, the final solution was hypnotherapy which finally disassociated my fear of rearing which allows me to ride and deal with anything that does happen without the fear.
2. Create Solutions. When you have the root cause, get support and figure out how to solve that so you no longer have to worry about that setback. What you will find is solving the root cause will often times solve a lot of the setbacks which are symptoms, and you will come out way ahead just by really solving one.
3. Flexibility. This one is so important. You may have a plan to ride but when you get to the barn, you horse isn't quite right, don't ride. Or you might be really in your head thinking of a work problem or dealing with a family issue, don't ride. Be flexible so that you don't have setbacks. This is really for those of us overcoming fear. We have to be a little more careful than our carefree riding friends that have never felt our fear and can just push through anomalies.
Whatever it is for you, make sure you always have support. You are not alone! If you would like to try out hypnosis like I did, you can check it out here: Check it out!
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