In this week’s episode, I’m sharing some perspectives on resilience and why it is essential to have a resilient training mindset. Tune in as I dive into the topics of mental toughness, effort, and creating an environment that fosters continual growth and development for you and your horse.

Resilience in the western industry

Our thoughts and prayers are with the people who have been affected by the Texas wildfires these past few weeks. The loss that they have experienced is unimaginable, and it is something that no one is prepared for. But if there’s one thing I know about the western industry, it’s that people are tough. The people in our industry can take a gut punch and get up and keep going. Tough times make tough people, and I believe our industry is full of some of the toughest people out there. Everyone is going to go through tough times. That’s just part of life. On the tough days, it’s important to remember that It’s not what happens to you – it’s how you react and respond to what happens to you.

The connection between physical and mental toughness

Physical toughness is worthless without mental resilience. As trainers, our bodies are conditioned to take a lot of physical strain in our day-to-day routine. For most of us, physical toughness is never the weakness–it’s when our thoughts come into play that we weaken. When we let our thoughts start beating us down, our physical toughness is soon to follow.

Building mental resilience

This week, we hosted a group of trainers here for our first mentorship week of the spring. For the first few days, the weather was beautiful. Then, Oklahoma weather decided to kick in, and we experienced all four seasons in a matter of 48 hours. We had 60-degree temperature swings, freezing rain, sleet and wind, and I’ll admit, my motivation was about as fleeting as the weather. But, that’s a really common situation where mental resilience comes into play. Weather is a great facilitator of excuses. If we rely on motivation alone, we are more likely to take a day off. Discipline says “keep going.”

Making motivation a math problem

A lot of situations that require us to be motivated or disciplined come back to a math problem. If we take days off every time there is a bad weather day, we use that as an excuse to not work our horses. In a year’s time, we are cheating ourselves out of progressing by waiting on perfect conditions. Oftentimes, we get frustrated that we didn’t progress our horses further in a year, but we only worked our horses 20% of the year. Not many of us ride 7 days a week. It’s not a realistic training schedule for most. Let’s say we work our horses 5 days a week. Right there, we are already eliminating 105 days of training out of our year.

Any time you are evaluating your progress, remember that “a year of training” can look a lot different for a lot of people. Every time you work your horse, mark it on the calendar and put a few notes on it. At the end of the year, count up the number of days you worked that horse. This will help put your “year of training” into perspective really quickly.

Creating a disciplined training environment

Motivation is great, but unless you have the discipline to implement the plan that you created when you were motivated, motivation isn’t going to get you anywhere. Effort is a product of your environment. It’s a learned skill. It’s a conditioned habit. We have to create a disciplined environment that encourages effort. We have to create a structured routine for ourselves, establishing our non-negotiable actions that get us to where we want to be.

The 3 Cs of horsemanship

For me, progression comes down to the 3 Cs of horsemanship: Clarity, Consistency, and Confidence. Whether you are training a horse, pursuing a career, starting your own business, getting in better shape… you have to have a formula that sets you up for success. For me, the first part of the equation is to have clarity about where I’m headed. I have to set out down a clear path with structured daily actions that are going to get me one step closer to my goals. Once I have that clarity about my actions, I have to be consistent with those actions. Clarity + Consistency = Confidence. If I can show up each day and be consistent, confidence naturally follows. Confidence is a product of action. You don’t just wake up with it. You have to earn it.