Accepting Imperfections

So as long as you are a human and your horse is a horse, both of you were born as and will remain as imperfect beings. There is a popular, unrealistic standard set and strived toward in sport and daily life that convinces people to achieve perfectionism in everything they do. In addition, mistakes and failure of any kind are not allowed and highly frowned upon. When searching for evidence of the existence of perfection, we often look in places, such as social media, where highlights are the vast majority of what is posted and curated. We often look at successful athletes and individuals and assume that every aspect about themselves and their lives are perfect. In reality, everyone is struggling whether they show it or not. No matter what we see and may conclude, perfect does not exist under any circumstances.

Making mistakes is an unavoidable, universal experience. Regardless of how talented and successful someone may be, there is no doubt that they have made errors during their journey and continue to make errors in and out of their sport. Many of us set too high of expectations for both ourselves and our horses, only to become disappointed and overly critical of ourselves when perfection doesn’t show itself in various endeavors. As a result, we tend to focus on what went wrong and how we fell short, emphasizing only the negative aspects of performance. Oftentimes, we begin to associate our performance mistakes and downfalls with our identity, thinking that we are inherently flawed or untalented. This is a dangerous mental space to be in due to the high potential of negative belief systems to be set and unfair comparisons made with ourselves and others. When focus is emphasized on riding perfectly and not wanting to make mistakes, there is a higher probability of mistakes to occur, thus reinforcing a highly critical and negative mindset. Perfectionistic tendencies can reveal a deep desire to consistently perform at our very best, but this mindset will do much more harm than good. We will never be satisfied if we are constantly working towards and never reaching unrealistic expectations.

Although horses and humans differ in many ways, a major commonality that we share is that we make mistakes. Riders may be the reason behind the vast majority of errors, but horses aren’t perfect 100% of the time. They are capable of tripping, misjudging distances, and making performance errors. Mistakes will happen when you ride, whether you miss a distance, or your horse stops at a jump. Regardless of what occurs, no ride is perfect, no rider is perfect, no horse is perfect, and that is completely okay. Coming to the realization that mistakes and downfalls are an inevitable part of riding and life will free you from the pressure of always requiring yourself to deliver performances that are fully free of any errors. You’ll be able to brush off whatever occurred, bounce back faster, experience progress, and enjoy your rides a lot more. If you aren’t making mistakes, then you probably aren’t challenging yourself enough. The presence of mistakes means you’re on the right track of making progress since you can’t improve without them. Instead of hyper-focusing on mistakes, practice accepting them, learning from them, and growing from them. It’s not about what error was made but how it’s responded to and moved forward from that matters the most.

Do you tend to nitpick at your rides and never think they’re “good enough”? Remember that a bad ride doesn’t equate to a bad rider. A horse who misbehaves doesn’t make them a bad horse. Of course, we all want to have a “perfect round”, but we can’t achieve something that does not exist. Your hiccups and errors do not define you; they only show you what you need to work on to be able to reach the next level in your riding. Learn to let go of perfection, embrace the imperfections, and enjoy the journey towards your riding goals. If you’d like to work more on this in-depth with me, please reach out!