Do you make excuses or do you make progress?
One day a lady attended a 3-day workshop I gave at my place in Belgium. Her horse was still young and the lady was there because she wanted to start her 3-year old gelding in groundwork.
That was of course very smart of her, as groundwork is the ideal training to do with a young horse: it helps the horse to deal with the human world, it’s good for the well-being of the horse, it prepares for riding, and much much more.
In those 3 days, we would be able to make a good start with basic groundwork but there was one very difficult thing to overcome: the excuses this lady made…
Not once, not twice, but the whole 3 days…
First, her horse was too energetic, it would be impossible to do those kind of exercises. Then she told me her horse suffered trauma from the vet and therefore he wouldn’t react well on the training at home. When we talked about how many times a week she should practice once she got home, she started explaining to me she didn’t have much time left to spend with her horse. When I tried to discuss this with the goal of finding a solution for that she started about how wintertime was almost there and how difficult it is to train a young horse when you don’t have an indoor arena.
At that point I started to realize that the problem was not the energy of the horse, or the traumatic experience, nor was it that there was not time enough or that winter was almost there.
I realized this lady was in fear. So she was creating excuses.
Excuses are reasons we create, reasons we invent to defend our behavior. For example: “I couldn’t train my horse today, because it was too cold outside” while in fact, it was not that cold, you could easily put on an extra jacket. But we made up this excuse because we’re having some kind of fear.
Excuses are always made because of fear.
• It can be fear for making mistakes which is fear of failure
• It can be fear of not being good enough
• It can be fear of others talking about you
• It can be fear of getting laughed at
So by making excuses: it’s cold, I’m tired, I have too much other stuff to do, etc…you don’t have to take action and you keep postponing the training of your horse.
Another type of excuses I also hear a lot is that people say things like:
- But my horse is too old for this…
- But my horse is stiff so I can’t train this…
- But my horse has a trailer trauma and that’s why he’ll never go into the trailer…
- But my horse is too difficult to train…
These excuses are also made because of fear.
But you have to know, that there are only 2 options: make excuses or make progress.
So, if you find yourself making excuses often, that prevent you from having success when it comes to training your horse, then it’s time to make a mind-shift.
To take responsibility.
To stop making excuses, and start making progress.
To start focusing on your goal, and how much you really want this.
If you’re ready to make that mind-shift, then I want you to know that I can help.
You just need the right person to guide you along the way. I’ll be your guide.
And now it’s even easier than ever. You can start the Groundwork Program for only €357 (temporary discount of 10% included). You can even make use of split payments.
Go to the page below to find out all the options.
https://programs.horsefulnesstraining.com/groundwork/join-now/
