Lessons Learned Outside the Arena

At his first horse show, he won so many classes that he was circuit champion for the entire series. It was an amazing achievement for any student, particularly for a rider who started riding after age 40.

 As his coach, I thought we were off to a great start and mentally patted myself on the back for doing such a good job. But the next year, my straight-A student would prove to be the most difficult teaching challenge I ever had.

Overnight, he became his own worst critic. He became such a rigid rider that few horses would put up with him, including his own. Our steady train of improvement fell clean off the tracks, and he seemed to get worse every lesson instead of better. He was a good client and a good person. He was a favorite at the barn, and it was difficult to watch his riding fall apart.

Of course, I tried to get to the bottom of it. Even though we had several student/trainer meetings, it took me an additional year to finally uncover what had gone wrong, and it happened by accident.

We were shooting the breeze one day when out of the blue he agonized that he "won't make it into the Grand Prix ring next year."  What?  For those of you who are not familiar with show jumping, this would be like a kid who just graduated kindergarten expecting to skip grade school, high school and college and head straight into medical school.

Shocked, I asked him to elaborate. It turned out he had watched the "big class" at his fateful first show and set a goal to come back the next year and ride in the Grand Prix. Thus, began the cycle of unrealistic goals and self pressure that would undermine his riding ability and make both of us miserable for the next year.  

Why were his goals so unrealistic? And even more troubling, why didn't I know about them sooner? I'm a good communicator and always clearly outlined my expectations for my students. But when I thought back,  I realized I'd never really asked him in a structured way to define his goals. So, I didn't fully understand what motivated him.

My student claimed he understood the goals I had set for him. Nevertheless, a dream had been awakened in him and he had become determined to achieve his goal in addition to the ones I set for him.  He knew his goal was lofty, but what he didn't know was it was completely unattainable.

Now, here's the weird part. One would think that since my goals for my student were far more reasonable, they would have been easier to accomplish: i.e. move up one division by the end of the year (a difference of only three inches in fence height over similar courses versus his goal of roughly three feet over vastly more difficult courses).  However, each lesson that my student failed to achieve the extensive progress he deemed necessary to reach his own goals, he became frustrated and difficult to teach. For an entire year, little if any progress was made.

In hindsight, I learned an important lesson from this experience. I realized it didn't matter how reasonable my goals were for my students. If a student and coach are not measuring success with a similar yardstick, both will fail to achieve their goals. 

I discovered that goal setting was a separate skill from teaching, and I needed to learn more about it. I don't teach riding lessons anymore, but as an equine business and marketing consultant, goal setting plays an equally important role in success. This is why I try to take advantage of every opportunity I can to learn more about it.

If you feel the same way, I hope you'll join us tonight for our free webinar "Equestrian Goal Setting Strategies for Horse Professionals."  Equestrian Mental Skills Coach and Sports Psychology professor Tonya Johnston, MA, has been a speaker at some of the nation's most acclaimed equestrian association conventions. It will be interesting to hear what she has to share with us on this important topic.

 Members and Future Members of Equestrian Professional
One of the most important benefits of being a member of EP is that we understand how different the horse business is from mainstream businesses. Our members gain access to a proven system and collection of tools and resources specifically for professional equestrians that help you to unify your equestrian career and business goals so that you are able to build both a successful career and a profitable business.

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