Goals Through Measurable Progress

Photo credit Nathan Stancliff

Riding is one of those skills that you never seem to master.  So shooting for perfection is as ambiguous as mastering a painting before its on canvas.  First, you’re gonna have to get your brush wet.  Especially when you have dreams of winning ribbons, or competing at a high level, it could get very frustrating when your equine partner is not cooperating to fit the picture you imagined.  Whether riding for pleasure or competing, we all have goals. There is a certain amount of accountability that you take to make goals more achievable.  Even if it is to just have fun, first you need to discover what it is that’s fun, then work on a skill set that can only improve the odds of having fun.  Riding horses, like art, has an infinite realm of possibilities, making your journey very unique compared to others.  To make a goal more attainable, there has to be measured value in your steps there or you’ll be shooting in the dark.  Anyone riding for the perfect picture without the measured steps, is only going to increase the odds of frustration.  Say that your goal is to win the Land Rover Kentucky Five Star Event when pooled with 50 plus other riders with the same goal.  What makes your chance to win greater?  How do you stand in chance compared to others shooting for the same dream?  I’ll be the first to encourage everyone to shoot for big goals. However I’ve been witnessing a growing trend of entitlement rather than proper training and acceptance of chance.  We are only in control of our actions.  The outcomes we get from our horse are all subject to chance.  It becomes an odds game.  Progress is my biggest motivator behind anything I do. Progress is a value of increased odds toward a desirable result over time.  However without changing your routine or lack of a program, you’re bound to get the same ambiguous results.  It’s an easy trap to bank on your occasional highs, or lowering the standard of your expectations to get the euphoric feeling, but unfortunately its not progress.  Jumping the occasional big jump doesn’t mean you are ready to show over a course of big jumps.  Performing one movement and arranging multiple movements together to make a dressage test in front of a judge can produce drastically different results.   Outcomes are something we are not in control of, but with skill can improve the odds of a more desirable result.  Improving skill is the one factor that can dramatically change the rate of your progress.  To improve the skill in your partnership, you have to discover your limiting factor.  The limiting factor is anything holding you back from a desirable result.  This is the hardest part of your training because it takes a lot of humility and maturity to look at a large sample of rides over time to discover what your limiting factor may be.  What made the random result good or bad in your ride and what was the common denominator?  This is what I call experience.  To find your limiting factor faster with less pain and struggle, you can bank on other’s experience to make the journey more pleasant.  A limiting factor can be anything ranging from performance anxiety, balance, to your horse’s lack of understanding the question.  You’ll develop your own system of collecting data, but this is what makes learning fun and more profitable when banking your own experiences.  With patience, repetition and education, riding skills can be improved when working on the limiting factor.  For progress to keep it’s momentum, you have to keep looking through the lens of discovering you and your horse’s weaknesses.  As a competitor, trainer and coach, I think of exercises to improve the chance of progress in skills by challenging the limiting factors I’m aware of and discovering others.  Don’t get discouraged from the undesirable results.  Remember your horse wants to seek comfort too.  In all the results you receive, good and bad, it’s the universal language toward progress when you train the muscle memory to do the next best action.  Anyone with a lot of experience has gone through the same highs and lows.  It’s what you do with your experience that increases the odds of mastering progress.  Goals are always subject to change according to the information obtained.  Breaking down goals can make progress more visible and fuel the journey with not only the euphoric feeling of achievement but training with integrity as well.