Ep 63: Making the Most of Your Time When Training
Time is our most precious commodity.
We live in a day and age where information is readily available at our fingertips. If we are having trouble solving a problem, we can do a quick search on Google or YouTube and find the answer fairly quickly.
The level of access we have to information is invaluable because it allows us to connect with one another, learn, and grow at a faster rate than ever before.
The downside of this is that we have gotten into a habit of expecting instant gratification.
In horse training, the desire for instant gratification can be detrimental to our long-term progress and success as trainers. We often want a “quick fix” to whatever challenge we’re experiencing today, but in this business, a quick fix now usually leads to even bigger challenges later.
When training horses, we cannot use a “bandaid approach” to the challenges we’re having.
For example, if we are having trouble controlling a horse’s speed or direction, many of us have the first instinct to try a bigger bit. That bit might give us a little more control temporarily, but it does little to fix the underlying problem of lack of softness and poor communication with that animal. Instead, the increased pressure from the bit will discourage any softness we are trying to create by causing the horse to feel pain, brace against the bit, and get stiff. While it may have provided a temporary solution, it ended up causing a bigger problem in the long-term.
The same is true with each trainer’s individual program. I share a lot of free advice and training tips on my platform, but sometimes, these tips are not as effective if people don’t have the context of my entire training system. Of course, one exercise alone may be extremely beneficial; but, it is even more effective when people understand the entire context of that exercise and the prerequisites required to utilize that training method to its fullest potential.
Horsemanship is a continual learning process. It’s a process that takes time (and lots of it). But, there are plenty of resources and mentors out there that can help you decrease the amount of time spent in the trial-and-error phase of training. Whether it is my program or someone else’s, there is a program out there that you believe will save you time in your own trial-and-error process, I encourage you to make that investment for yourself. Let someone else’s experience save you more of your most precious commodity: time.
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