Episode 218: Check your confidence in these four areas

Episode 218_ Check your confidence in these four areas.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 218_ Check your confidence in these four areas.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Stacy Westfall:
Your breathing might be shallow or your muscles might be tense and you're just sitting back and observing the horse. But the horse is also observing you. And back to my driving analogy, if you're doing this, you're essentially a distracted driver. Maybe you're not texting while you're riding your horse. But to your horse, you might as well be.

Announcer:
Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple: to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Stacy Westfall:
Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall and I help riders see life principles in horses and horse principles in life. Today I want to discuss the question, where does confidence come from? I want to explore this today with a life example and horse examples. If you figure out why you have confidence in one area, I believe you can apply that theory to other areas. And I find that many riders want more confidence. So think about the last time you wanted more confidence. What were you doing? Was it with your horse or were you preparing to talk in front of a large group of people? What was the challenge that you were facing when you wanted more confidence? Why can you be in other challenging situations and still have a feeling of confidence? This entire podcast outline popped into my head as I drove home after being in a car accident. I was driving my truck 40 miles an hour and someone from a side road pulled out in front of me. Thankfully, neither of us required an ambulance, although we were both bruised up and neither vehicle was drivable, they both had to be towed away. I'm quite sure that the other car was totaled and we are still awaiting the verdict on our truck. After the police left and while my husband stayed and waited for the tow truck, I had the opportunity to drive home in a borrowed vehicle. And about 5 minutes up the road, I found myself pondering why am I able to drive home with confidence? Why do I feel confident getting into a vehicle, I don't know, driving on the same road that I just had an accident on?nAnd the only noticeable side effect is a slightly, maybe 5% higher sense of awareness of other drivers on the road. As you listen to my thoughts on this subject, see if you can find a similar situation that you've been in somewhere where you had confidence, even though you had evidence that things don't always go as planned. As I drove home, it occurred to me that I had confidence in four different areas. I had confidence in my physical skill, my ability to operate a vehicle. I had confidence in my plan. I had confidence in how I treat myself and I had confidence in my ability to learn. Let's look at these four areas as applied to riding horses, and I will include some of the mistakes that I see riders make in each of these areas.

Stacy Westfall:
In the area of confidence in your physical skills, I would define that as your ability to accurately respond to a situation. So in my four square model, this would be the rider's body. And when I look around at riders who are getting started, for sure, they are in the beginning of learning how to accurately respond. And this might be similar to learning how to operate a vehicle. And this is the area that I see most riders, most heavily focused on. I see lots of riders who want to know how to press on the gas or steer or apply the brakes, "correctly." And that is a great place to start. It is exactly like being in driver's ed. It is a very good idea. Where I often see riders make a mistake in this area is that they ignore their body when they feel signs of fear. The fear might come from a known source like, I've never done this before. This is my third time riding a horse, of course, I feel a little unsure. Or it could be more sliding down that scale to where it's true fear. Like, different levels is what I'm indicating here, but a real fear because your horse bucked on the last ride. And the problem that I see is that when riders are dismissing or ignoring fears that they're feeling in their physical body, they tend to rationalize it away. They say things like, I'm feeling this fear, but he probably won't buck again. He probably got it out of his system yesterday, or he'll probably be okay on the trip. And I believe a huge part of confidence in your physical skills is listening to the feedback from your body. What if you looked at fear–and you're going to hear me use different words for it– doubt or insecure, but fear is the deeper one, the deepest or the biggest, if we want to call it that, if we want to rank them. What if you looked at fear or any of those variations as a warning light in one of these four areas? So if the warning light is going off in your body and it feels like fear. The first question I want you to ask is, does it point towards physical danger? And two big things riders tend to skim past in this area are their physical skill level and their horses, physical and emotional skill level. So in the rider's skill level, I think of it like throwing a basketball through a hoop. That's a concept in your mind. You can sit on the sidelines and you can watch somebody throw a basketball up and through a hoop. But there's also the execution or the physical skill that goes into learning that. And you must put hours into developing the physical skill.

Stacy Westfall:
So when you're getting the sensation of fear or concern in your body, it is important to pause and assess where it's coming from. Because if it's coming from something known like it's your third ride on a horse, then it's probably safe to say that you're still in that learning phase and feeling a little bit uncomfortable is normal. Hopefully you're in a safe environment and you have a good instructor there that's helping you. It is, however, important to accurately assess your vehicle or your horse in this case, because if your vehicle has bad brakes. Or whatever the equivalent would be with your horse. Then your fear might be pointing towards a problem that actually requires a mechanic. So do you see how there's that intersection between your physical skills? But also the vehicle that you're driving. So many riders operate their horse. Like becoming a better driver will fix the car. And if your car has bad brakes, then if you're not equipped to be the mechanic, then you need a mechanic. They're not the same skill set. The ability to operate the car and the ability to fix the car are two different skill sets. They are related. But if your horse needs more education or better brakes, can you hear how that is different than simply driving the car accurately? So when you're experiencing fear, any level of it, check in and find out why. Because if it's pointing towards, you need more repetitions of throwing that basketball up through the hoop, of being able to drive with the driver's ed instructor, you might find that that's just the normal discomfort. But the way you're going to know that is because you can point to what's causing it and what would make it go away. If I try to throw this basketball through the hoop 200 more times, I'm going to have a different emotion. I'm going to have a different experience level. I'm going to know a lot more than I know now. And because many of the podcasts on here go through the rider's physical body, I did an entire season on it, I actually want to talk about how this overlaps with the next area that you could have confidence or not have confidence in.

Stacy Westfall:
I mentioned that one problem I often see is riders dismissing or ignoring the fear. And so let's say it is your third time riding a horse and you dismiss the fear or ignore it. You're actually not answering the question, What is this fear coming from? I really wish I knew how to confidently stop. I really wish I knew how to confidently steer. I really wish I knew what it meant when the horse did X, y, z with its head. But many riders rationalize it away. They dismiss it or they ignore it. And what that does is it brings me to my next point, which is the confidence you have in your plan. So when I think about driving a vehicle, my confidence level changes depending on my plan. So if I plan to drive somewhere and it's icy out, or my plan requires me to drive through rush hour in a major city with a horse trailer, or the plan requires me to drive late at night, I know that this is going to change my confidence level a little bit and therefore make me need to modify those plans. The reason I know that these are issues for me is because I have allowed myself to look at the low-level fears or concerns that I have in these areas. Looking at these concerns or fears is what allows me to make a plan. Now here's where it crosses over kind of nicely. Notice my skills didn't change, the situation did. And so because the situation changes, the plan to drive through the city or the plan to drive when it's icy out, it actually is just calling for a change of plans that may or may not involve more skill. Each of these situations that I listed would require a different plan, which is good to know, because I could have just pretended that nothing was different when I drive on ice. Nothing is different when I drive through rush hour traffic. Nothing is different when I drive at night. But if I ignore that, then I won't be as prepared for the specific challenges that I will face. One thing that I find really interesting about me leaving home the morning of the accident was that it was really cold out and I was wearing my nice jacket, aka the one that hasn't been to the barn yet. And despite the fact that I had a jacket on, I decided to throw my ugly, heavy barn jacket into the truck with me. And I remember clearly, I almost skipped taking my bottle of water because it was going to be a quick trip. But then I decided to take the bottle of water with me, and I also put my new triple-A card in my wallet because it seemed like a good idea. I was listening to these little whispers and just taking action, and if nothing had happened maybe I would have looked overly prepared. I would have put the barn coat into my vehicle and never needed it. But I'm telling you, all of those things came in very handy on a cold day standing on the side of the road for 2 hours. So how much confidence do you have in your plan with your horse? And I think oftentimes people think about plans as being plans for growth, like how I'm going to reach my next goal. But I believe that much of the confidence in your planning comes from plans made after the last time you didn't feel confident. So the lack of confidence that I'm sort of just broadly terming fear, although it could be experienced as doubt or many other things, that lack of confidence is a warning sign.

Stacy Westfall:
So here's a question. Does your plan address more than just the best case scenario? For example, if you're concerned about your horse bucking. Do you have a plan that you can physically execute if your horse offers to buck again? If you do have a plan, did you have it before the last time the horse bucked in this example? If you had the plan before the last time the horse bucked, did you use the plan or not use it? Why didn't it work if you used it or did it work? Or could it be modified? Confidence in your plan and your execution of the plan often comes with practice. And because I chose the example of bucking, I have really good news for you. Do you remember doing fire drills? Did your school do fire drills when you were back in? Maybe grammar school, high school? You can actually practice for emergencies without having the emergency happen. Because I have started many horses under saddle for years. I've practiced a lot of imaginary fire drills. I've practiced what it would take to stop a horse from bucking. And I've done it to the point where it feels like a reflex, like my body takes me there before my brain does. Some of you will understand that when you think of relating it to driving a vehicle. Now when I was teaching my children to ride horses, I would give them lunge line lessons and I would have them practice letting go and then grabbing the saddle horn, letting go with one hand, switching to the other, hand, letting go with both hands, grabbing with the left hand, letting go, grabbing with the right hand. I wanted their bodies to have the reflex that they didn't have to think about. Because I know that riders who don't do this automatically are much more likely to balance off the reins, because when you feel threatened, your body will do something. And so I taught my children how to let go and grab the saddle horn. But if you're really worried about what it looks like to ever touch the saddle horn, you might not practice the simple skill of reaching up and grabbing the saddle horn and letting go. And the planning and replanning that goes into addressing concerns that you have is another really great time to assess your vehicle or horse in this case. So if you're going to drive a vehicle in the snow, you might think during your planning, do I need snow tires for this year or am I going to choose a different vehicle? When you're thinking about your horse, it's a good idea to think about the situation and whether or not the horse is prepared for it, or if there's anything you can do to help prepare for it. And a lot of that will look like troubleshooting ahead of time. It might be you asking the question of like, what are you afraid he might do in this situation or what behavior might he offer that would bother you? And that would require you to know what bothers you. And do you have a plan for how you're going to handle that? Is your plan that you'll look further ahead, that you'll dismount, that you'll use more leg? A plan is actual physical things that you would do in that situation. Planning involves imagining the things that won't work. When I left the house the morning of the accident, I didn't have to think I might be hit by another car today. But I was able to understand that it was cold outside and I might end up stranded on the side of the road for some reason. One thing I have been saying that I did not do is I have been saying that we need flairs in the vehicles because drivers drive so fast and half of them look distracted. And that's something I haven't done yet, but I really wished I had them as people were flying past the accident scene. So there are things you can't imagine without having to actually be in the situation. Another interesting thing is that if you have confidence in your plan, there may be situations where you have experience and you're just not leaning on it because you just didn't look at the possible things. So I have skills that from time to time I dust off and use more with different levels of horses. So I know that if I am riding a colt, which is a horse that's in what I call elementary level, that I'm going to have different skills that are needed than if I am finishing a horse at a college level. So it's really great if you developed the skills at one point, but when you're making your plan, you may see that you just need to dust off some of your old skills and that will give you more confidence in your plan, which can also give you more confidence in your physical skills.

Stacy Westfall:
The next area of confidence that I identified was confidence in how you treat yourself. And in my Foursquare model, this is the rider's mind. And on my drive home, I was thinking this could be the most important area because it impacts how you plan. It impacts how you show up and it impacts how you perform and evaluate. It is also very tied in with the next area that I'll talk about, which is your ability to learn, which involves both the rider's mind and the rider's body. So confidence in how you treat yourself would be, Are you kind to yourself? Are you very self-critical? Because if you're very self-critical, then planning becomes a challenge, because you will know that you will never be good enough for you. Let me say it another way. They say hindsight's 20/20. So if you let future you, the person after something happens, be mean or critical of past you, the person who was making the plan a week ago, an hour ago, a day ago, then what will begin to happen is you won't even want to try. Did that phrasing sound strange to you? For me, I have learned that using the phrasing past me and future me is very helpful. I can be confident of myself right now with the information that I have and I can allow myself to grow and I'll be much more likely to do both. If I see that I am changing, I am not the same person this week that I was last week. Past me was doing her best. And if I know that in my gut because I was her. Sometimes I can look back and realize that past me, doing her best prepared me really well and I'm doing amazing things now because of it. And sometimes I will look back and realize that past me did her best and totally missed the mark. But because I know in my body, in my brain, in my memory, in my experience, I know why I made the decisions I did. And because of that and my ability to be kind to myself, to past me right now, it means I can make new decisions. I can make a plan with the best knowledge I have right now, execute the plan, and then look back at that plan from the future and be kind to past me who made it. I regularly say that it is completely amazing to me that learning doesn't happen in this one steady flow.

Stacy Westfall:
A great example of this is that I learn a lot when I show my horses. When I walk into the arena I prepare as much as I know how to. I would call it 100% dialed in. I dial in 100% before I walk into that arena to show my horse. I go in, I execute the plan, and 4 minutes later, when I walk out, I know twice as much. This is not a joke. If you want to know how to speed things up, you've got to figure out where you can have that type of experience. Now, here's the secret. Twenty years ago, when I walked in, I was 100% dialed in and full of fear. I was full of fear of what the outcome would be, and I was consumed with self-critical thinking. When I walked out of those show experiences, I did not know twice as much because I was beating myself up. Figuring that I probably didn't have the best plan, that I was going to go execute it to 100%, and then I was going to be mean to myself. So if you regularly judge and criticize yourself, you will have a completely different experience of the challenges. And it might seem like it only impacts you for a moment, but if your future you is a tyrant, then current you won't keep walking into that trap. Here's a major point. Being very harsh with yourself is not the same thing as evaluating. When you evaluate, evaluation is done from a neutral place with understanding and an openness to learn. Evaluating is understanding what past you was thinking and what past you was planning and what past you was doing so that future you can improve upon it. If you could choose only one of these three areas to develop confidence in, I would choose this one because confidence in how you treat yourself will change the other three areas as a byproduct. This area is also where fears that aren't pointing towards physical danger can really be shifted. Many people, many riders struggle when somebody is watching them or if someone offers unsolicited advice. A lot of riders fear making, "mistakes" in public because of what other people will think or say. These are issues of self-confidence. It's a choice to have your own back or not. It is not realistic to expect no mistakes. And if you want a deep dive into that subject, go back to Episode 214 where I talked about reviewing without a self-doubt spiral.

Now, I also mentioned a minute ago that your confidence in how you treat yourself will impact your confidence in your ability to learn. This goes in to the rider's mind type of learning and the rider's body type of learning. So your ability to learn, to think about new concepts, and to execute new skills with your physical body requires an openness that is rarely present if you are beating yourself up. If you have confidence in your ability to learn and confidence that you will treat yourself fairly. Can you see how these would unlock your ability to plan and to improve your physical skills? One way that I see riders block their ability to learn is when they push through high levels of fear. So let's say that fear has different levels that you could be unsure, you could be concerned, you could be afraid. The first time that you feel unsure, you could feel unsure, take a closer look, make a plan, and learn a new skill. Or you can do what many riders do, which is tell yourself that you're exaggerating, that you're blowing it out of proportion, and that it really isn't anything you need to look at. One of these paths facilitates learning and the other one blocks it. If you listen to the whisper of unsure, then you develop the ability to make a plan. Or you can ignore the whisper of unsure and it can become a concern. Ten rides later when you're riding and you're concerned that this is becoming a habit–And what's interesting is that if you aren't being proactive, you will tend to just observe this. So each interaction with your horse becomes more of an observation than an influencing, because you would have to have a plan to influence. So you go out and ride number one and you notice this little head toss and you feel a little unsure, but you figure it's nothing. So you ignore that and then you notice on ide five that it's been happening every other ride. And then you notice on ride ten that it might be developing into more of a habit and you are concerned. What's interesting is that you're practicing ignoring your own intuition. And if you keep on going this is where it will often build to the point where you're afraid. Many riders have practiced ignoring the smaller warning signs in their own body. But those are still there in your body. So your horse is feeling your lack of confidence, even if you pretend it's not there. Your breathing might be shallow or your muscles might be tense and you're just sitting back and observing the horse. But the horse is also observing you. And back to my driving analogy, if you're doing this, you're essentially a distracted driver. Maybe you're not texting while you're riding your horse. But to your horse, you might as well be. You are incongruent. You are feeling that concern and you're not addressing it in a way that will actually shift how you show up. Because just having a plan is actually enough to change the dance in your body to where you can have some concern and you can have a plan and you can be shifting what's going on. And that will change not just your experience, but your horse's experience.

Stacy Westfall:
Lower-level feelings of things like unsure are low-level warning signs. Fear is a threshold warning. Fear is when you have crossed a danger zone line in your own mind. You are no longer experiencing it as, I'm a little unsure. I'm a little bit concerned. You are now afraid. And if this comes up around something when you're riding your horse, stop and check your skills, your physical skills, and your plan and assess your horse's skills. If this comes up around what others will think of you at a show, or if you dismount on that trail ride, then check your confidence in how you will treat yourself. I view life with horses as an opportunity to learn life lessons. And sometimes I have other life experiences, like a car accident that offer me an opportunity to reflect on the things I've been learning. At the beginning of the podcast, I asked you to think of a time where you did have confidence, even though you had evidence that things don't always go as planned. Did you find an example? You are confident in some areas, even if you face challenges or accidents. Maybe you're confident cooking. Or maybe you're confident driving a car. Or maybe it's something that you do at work. Think about your specific example as I wrap up. I presented these confidence ideas in this order. Confidence in the skill, confidence in the plan, confidence in how you treat yourself, confidence in your ability to learn. I think they belong in this order. Confidence in how you treat yourself, confidence in your ability to learn, confidence in your plan, and confidence in your skill. When I think back to Driver's Ed, the order they taught it to me in was learn, plan, skill. And no one talked about the mindset at all. Lean in to your own life experience and discover how you have created confidence in certain areas, let's say, in your cooking, even though you can remember over or under-cooking something somewhat recently. Why could I drive home after an accident feeling confident in a borrowed vehicle? Because I've developed these four skills in life and in the area of driving, to the best of my ability. I have minimized the risks that I can control that are associated with driving. And I have accepted that there are some I cannot control. Challenges will happen. Accidents will happen, too. If you're feeling unsure or doubt or fear look at what it's trying to tell you. It is the warning sign, but it is also the path. It is your opportunity to build your confidence. Ride safe. Drive safe. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.

Announcer:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit stacywestfall.com for articles, videos, and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.

Automatically convert your mp3 files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.

Sonix has many features that you’d love including advanced search, world-class support, upload many different filetypes, automatic transcription software, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.