Overcoming Confidence
How to Overcome Confidence Issues When Riding Your Horse
The human brain is an amazing thing. One of its functions is to keep you safe. It can help you get away from danger. It also learns what is dangerous so it can detect danger in the future. There is no conscious decision from you as to what it detects as dangerous or what it learns is dangerous. It can be something that might cause you physical harm but also emotional or social harm. That is why people can develop anxiety and fear over things that may have made them experience embarrassment, a sense of failure or emotional hurt.
When our brains detect danger, it lets us know by making us feel uncomfortable. Sometimes this might be a feeling of “anxiety” or “dread” or just that “gut feeling” that something isn’t right. Sometimes it can be more dramatic if danger is upon us and we will switch into flight or fight or freeze. When this happens, the conscious decision-making part of the brain shuts down and the fear centers take over.
So, lets discuss your lack of confidence in riding your horse. This is happening because your brain has detected danger.
It is NOT because you are being weak, a coward or silly. It is NOT a bad thing. If your lack of confidence has come after a scary incident or fall, then your brain has just been factual in identifying that riding your horse is NOT a safe thing to do and is best avoided! It can also come about when you may be struggling with a horse and feel frustrated by your lack of progress. Again, your brain has just identified riding your horse causes you emotional distress and therefore, should be avoided to keep you from emotional pain! Keeping you from harm is your brains priority and this overrides the fact that you love horses and riding them is your hobby that you wish to enjoy!
If you work with me, you will learn that listening to and understanding fear in both yourself and your horse is a great gift. Using the awareness of fear can help you overcome your own confidence issues as well as helping your horse.
So, how do you overcome fear and confidence issues?
It is quite simple – you teach your brain that what it has detected as dangerous is NOT dangerous.
You do this by becoming aware of HOW you are feeling. I get people to score how anxious or scared they feel out of 10. My rule is, you must never proceed in doing an activity with a horse if you score yourself 4 or above. This is because the more stressed you are, the less you can think and control your reactions. People that ride when they are highly anxious or scared are reactive in their movements and tend to be aggressive. It is common to see these people overreact to their horse doing something minor such as simply tripping or breaking gait, by snatching the reins sharply and punishing the horse for scaring them. The high levels or stress, fear or anxiety, make the person reactive as the fear centers of the brain have taken over for self-preservation only, not good horse training. This destroys trust and confidence in horses; therefore, it is important to avoid being like this at all costs.
Next, you focus on doing simple things that you do feel confident in doing. Only when you feel confident doing something simple do you even consider doing something more complex. Your aim is to allow your brain to identify the activities you are doing with your horse are safe because they are successful encounters where you are in control.
To demonstrate what this process looks like in action, here is a story from a recent clinic:
Hayley had experienced a bad fall from her horse Flynn. The fall left her with a severe concussion. It also left her confidence in tatters and she did not feel safe riding anymore. Flynn had also developed a habit of throwing his head in the air and threatening to rear if Hayley picked up the reins or asked him to go faster than a walk. Dealing with such an evasion is impossible when your confidence is in tatters; however, by the end of the clinic Hayley was back in the saddle and successfully addressing the issue. We did this by Hayley becoming aware and respecting her level of anxiety.
At the start of the clinic I asked Hayley what she would score herself out of 10 for anxiety at the prospect of getting on Flynn. She gave herself a 7 or 8/10. Then we worked Flynn on the ground and focused on how he was going, if he looked worried or calm etc. After Flynn was looking very calm and willing on the ground, we checked in with Hayley’s anxiety score. Gradually it came down to a 3-4/10. So we moved to the mounting block. Standing on the mounting block Hayley’s score went up to 5-6/10. So, we repeated ground working Flynn and then standing at the mounting block until her score went to a 3/10. Then Hayley got on and off, until her score again stayed at around 2-3/10. The rule was, Hayley had to check in with herself and not do anything she felt uncomfortable in doing. If her score went up, we stopped and returned to something that she felt more comfortable doing. Sometimes that was just standing still. This sounds tedious and slow, but it wasn’t. By the second session Hayley was trotting! By the third session Hayley was getting on without doing any groundwork and was now actively addressing Flynn’s evasion. By the end of the clinic she was doing walk, trot transitions and Flynn was softening to the bridle and had stopped threatening. Here is what Hayley wrote after the clinic as her biggest take away from working with me:
“My biggest take away is that we are a team and a team moves together when all parties are comfortable and ready. I look forward to successful rides and to take the confidence I have gained this weekend home to continue (I’m actually excited to ride again!)”
Losing confidence is nothing to be ashamed of. One of the most important factors behind Hayley’s success at the clinic is that she was prepared to be honest about her destroyed confidence. So many people are ashamed to admit they have started to feel anxious riding. This anxiety can be from fear but also from feeling like a failure. By using the awareness of these feeling inside of us is how you become an effective rider and trainer. It helps you make good decisions, for yourself and for your horse. A few years ago, I got to interview a past Australian champion bull rider and excellent horseman and ask him why he thought he had been so successful. He told me that it was simple. He always listened to his fear, his “gut instinct”. He said most blokes would never admit that but if he feels butterflies in his stomach, he stops and either does not proceed or goes back and checks. He believed this trust in listening to his fear is ultimately what makes him more confident and braver than others who suppressed or ignored their fear.
Therefore, we should not be ashamed of this natural protective mechanism that can easily be triggered within us. It is a gift and embracing it will change everything.
