The Struggle of Expectations

Horse training requires a lot of patience, patience and more patience. Training horses is simply something that cannot be rushed, forced or put into a crunched timeline. One thing I have been battling when training my horses is to not allow myself to get caught up in "expectations". Of course there are goals that I am striving for, but I sometimes catch myself feeling a bit stressed that where this horse is at, is not "good enough".

What's funny is I have never had a client tell me that they were disappointed with their horses progress or training, so I don't have any real reason to feel this way. I like to think it's because I am always trying to build upon the last bit of progress, like the work is never done so to speak. But I also feel pressure from a lot of the horse competitions you see now days where trainers will break and start a horse in a matter of days or even hours! Again, funny because I really don't believe this method, but these trainers get a lot of hype and attention.

I am always trying to work on me, my training method and what I believe will work for each horse I interact with. I am consistently working on not allowing these thoughts to take me away from the moments in training where I need to be 100% focused on the horse. If I start missing those moments I will surly be more behind than had I been focused on what's in front of me. I am realizing I am in control of what my expectations are and that it is mostly pressure I am putting on myself. I have found that lowering my expectations actually helps me relax and I will progress a lot faster and smoothly with a horse when this things are easily achievable.

I think my take away is realizing it's ok to have high expectations, but you cannot allow these expectations to jeopardize your journey getting there. It will take the time it takes, and no matter what anyone says, I will stick to that!