Episode 293: Recalibrating Your Horse Training Goals: A Step-by-Step Guide

Episode 293: Recalibrating Your Horse Training Goals: A Step-By-Step Guide: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Episode 293: Recalibrating Your Horse Training Goals: A Step-By-Step Guide: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Stacy Westfall:
Many times that nagging feeling of being behind is you needing to pause, assess where you're at, and then reevaluate your plan going forward with the new information that you have.

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'm here to help you understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses. In this episode, I want to talk about those times when you feel really far behind. When that happens, you'll probably hear yourself actually say out loud or in your head. I feel behind or maybe I feel really far behind. When you say this, it indicates that you expected to be at a certain point by this time. In this episode, I want to give you four questions to ask yourself, and then two action steps that you can take the next time you feel behind. So let's jump straight in to the questions. If you find yourself saying that you feel behind the first question I want you to ask yourself is, have you done this before? Two examples of this would be let's say you're starting a cult for the first time. Have you done this before? I'm doing that right now with my colt Ember and the answer is yes. So I have done this before, so I have an idea of the timeline. Another example would be the virtual Tevis Cup challenge that many of you have joined me in participating in in the virtual Tevis Cup. You are asked to track your miles, and the goal is to cover 100 miles in 100 days. So this is where you could ask yourself the question, have you done this before? Because when you haven't done something before, there's a great chance that you left out a few steps.

Stacy Westfall:
Another question to ask yourself is, did you have a plan that looked like it was going to lead you to a certain point by a certain time? Because if you're saying you feel really far behind, it would indicate that you expected to be at a certain point right now. One of the examples I've used on the podcast in the past was when I decided to run a 5K. It seemed like a simple plan. When I googled it, I downloaded an app. It told me to run three days a week. It told me when to run, when to walk, and it told me exactly the straight line path to being able to run a 5K. However, it left out a few things, like what to do if your knee starts hurting or when to add in extra recovery days. So I at least had a plan that looked like it was going to lead me there. So my answer in that case would have been yes, I did have a plan. This seemed like it was going to lead me to a certain point by a certain time. And again, we could look at the virtual Tevis Cup 100 miles in 100 days. The easy math on that would be one mile a day. But maybe you decided to do two miles every other day. So notice that both of the examples, the 5K and the virtual Tevis Cup, those both seem pretty straightforward.

Stacy Westfall:
And that's why it's so tempting to make it into a checklist. Now, when we add in things like starting a colt, it's easier to see how this can get a little bit more complicated. If you decided to start your first colt, you would need to gather quite a bit of information, and then you would need to start taking steps forward. You would have a plan for what it was going to look like, but there would be quite a few variables because first of all, there's you and you learning the new information, and there is your horse that you are conveying the information to. And then there's the fact that when you're putting the first few rides on a horse, it feels more risky. So you may have a lot more questions and rightfully so. So you might have a plan for approximately how it's going to flow. But for safety's sake, you may want to leave some wiggle room in there, because I still do that. I want to assess and decide how this particular young horse is taking the training. And if I would like to add even more steps to the program that I've already outlined. Now, because we're starting out with the idea that you're listening to this podcast and you're feeling far behind. Let's continue to play along with that thought. The third question would be what decisions did you make that caused you to fall behind? Some of the decisions I've made that have caused me to fall behind on a desired timeline are things like I got sick, so I took time off or the horse had a soundness issue.

Stacy Westfall:
Some other examples of decisions that you may make, and you may look back and see that you decided not to ride because it was really hot, or because it was really cold, or because a friend stopped by. You might look back and see that you didn't plan riding into your schedule, and so you kind of hoped you would ride five days a week. But when you notice you're feeling behind and you look back, you might notice that you were only riding two days a week. What decisions did you make that caused you to fall behind? And the fourth and final question for this section of the podcast is, do you like your reasons? For example, when I've gotten sick and taken time off, am I glad that I took the time off to let myself get better? There's no one answer to that. Some people want to work through the sickness, and some people want to hit pause on the plan and give themselves time to get better. The main point of asking this question is that sometimes we get off track and if we look back, we actually like the reason that we chose to become off track.

Stacy Westfall:
A great example that is fresh in my mind is this spring and me feeling off track, because I got busy raising some orphan foals. So even though I don't love feeling off track or derailed or behind, when I look back and I realize that I made the choice to raise orphan foals, I actually like my reason for being off track, and that makes a very big difference when I can remember. Do I like my reason for being off track? It's important to realize that sometimes when you're off track, it was by choice. Whether that's because you got sick and you wanted to take time, or whether it's because your horse had soundness issues and you wanted to take time, or whether you found yourself raising orphan foals and you wanted to use your time that way. The important thing in those moments is to actually give yourself credit for making those decisions. It's so easy to forget why you rode less than you meant to. If you don't actually point your brain back at the really great reasons you had for choosing a different path. The more challenging thing that comes up when you ask yourself, do you like your reasons? Is often if you don't like your reasons. So that might be you didn't plan riding into your schedule, you thought it might just happen, and then you realize after two months have gone by, that you're not riding as frequently as you meant to.

Stacy Westfall:
This is where you might say you don't like your reasons for missing out on riding, but at the very moment that you realize that you wish you had made a different decision in the past, it's very important that you remain kind to yourself in this moment. If you admit that you decided to sit in the air conditioning and watch TV instead of riding when it was 92 degrees out. If you decided that you wish you had actually gotten up early and ridden before the heat, but you ended up with the choice of 92 or air conditioning and you chose air conditioning. It's important to realize right now that just because you don't like your reason, you can also draw a line in the sand about how you're going to treat yourself when you look back at that experience. What I have found to be true in my life is that when I can look at the actual reasons why I ended up doing something that I really wouldn't want to repeat again in the future, the more kindness I can bring to the version of me that made those decisions, the more power I have to make a different decision in the future. It's almost like if I'm judging myself and I'm mean to myself right now because of my past decisions, it's like I'm cowering from myself and I'm afraid to admit my own decision making process to myself.

Stacy Westfall:
And in that moment, I will block myself from being able to make different decisions in the future. If I start to think that I'd make terrible choices and that I'm really far behind, and because I make terrible choices, I probably won't be able to figure this out, that's going to quickly spiral into thinking that's not likely to move me forward. On the other hand, if I notice it's 92 and there's the choice of air conditioning or riding, and I realize after the fact that I could have gotten up early and I could have ridden before it got hot, but I didn't know that and didn't think of that until it was too late. If I can handle that with compassion, I can still dislike that I skipped out on riding, but I can also grant myself permission to learn from that failure to plan for the heat. And I can make a better decision tomorrow and next week. Now that I've covered the four questions that I would like you to ask yourself, here are two action steps that you can take the next time you feel behind. So let's pretend you just heard yourself say I'm really far behind. Again, this indicates that you had an idea of where you wanted to be or where you expected to be at this point. In that moment when you say, I'm really far behind step one. Did you have a plan or not? Oftentimes, people will have a hopeful wish or a sense of where they think they can be, but having a hopeful sense can be an emotional habit and is not something that you can evaluate.

Stacy Westfall:
I talked directly about emotional habits back in episode 271. In that episode, I discussed how we can get stuck in certain emotional states. And oftentimes when people think about making a plan and they have that hope that they can get a certain amount of things done or a certain thing done in a year, sometimes that hope feels so good, it doesn't feel necessary to actually create a plan. Having a sense of where you could be at the end of June, for example, if you're starting in January, having a sense of where you could be is part of making a plan, but it's not specific enough for you to be able to learn from. The most common reason I see people say they can't plan is because they don't plan. So can't plan and didn't plan are very different. If you look and you think I hoped I would be at this certain point by June, the answer is you had a wish or a hope. And in this moment, when your brain tells you you are behind and you don't actually have a plan for how you are going to get here, tell yourself the truth. You didn't have a plan, so you are right on track. You can wish you were further ahead or wish you had done more, but if you didn't have a plan so you can't actually evaluate what you were choosing and what you weren't choosing because you were just hoping, then your only work is this.

Stacy Westfall:
Break the habit of telling yourself you are behind when you really had no plan. When you say I'm really far behind and then you say, did you have a plan? If you had no plan, tell yourself you're right on track. It'll make you crazy, but it will also be the thing that will make you get more concrete in your planning. I planned to ride five days a week, and I executed that plan 90% of the time, and this is where I'm at in my process, and it's not exactly where I thought I would be. So maybe I need to make some adjustments to those rides. That is a plan you can evaluate from hoping you'll get to a certain point by June. Believing without a plan that you'll get there. That is just a hope. And it's hard to evaluate that because when you evaluate just your hope, a lot of times what will happen is it will feel like you didn't have enough belief when the reality is you didn't have a plan. So step one is did you have a plan? Then take that plan and go back through and ask yourself the four questions I just gave you and evaluate your plan using those.

Stacy Westfall:
If you made it past step number one because you did have a plan. Here is step number two. Did your plan involve reevaluation points? Sometimes that nagging feeling of being behind is coming from a need to reevaluate your plan. I actually talked about a version of this back in episode 289, Recovery Time. The missing piece of your training plan. Many people don't plan in recovery time, and most also do not plan in reevaluation points. For short term goals, you can get away with skipping reevaluation points. But if your goal spreads over time, or if you have never traveled this path before, if you've never had this goal before or a very similar goal, it's very important to plan in reevaluation points. If you're looking for a specific recommendation, if you're doing something you've never done before, make a long term plan to the best of your ability and then reevaluate every 30 days. You can evaluate weekly. You can evaluate by weekly, but if you're on a path you've never traveled before, I would highly suggest at least doing it once a month. Last year. I had a plan for the year starting January 1st, and I found myself in May and June having a feeling of being really behind, and that feeling kept getting stronger and stronger. What happened was January 1st I had a plan and January 14th I broke my hand in a car accident.

Stacy Westfall:
January, February and March were very busy with doctors and it felt like survival mode. Learning how to get dressed and how to shower and how to do things without my dominant hand as my hand healed and I began rehab. The feeling of being behind got stronger and stronger. Thankfully, I've been practicing resets that are pre-scheduled for years. In fact, you can go back to episode 137, The Role of Excitement and Patience in Horse Training. That episode was published June 30th, 2021, and you can hear me talking about my June-July reset. So three years ago, you can hear me talking about the June-July reset. So as May and June were happening and I'm feeling this building behind behind your behind feeling when I got to the June-July reset, here's what I did. I sat down and I modified my goals, adjusting for what happened. That became my new beginning point. From July 1st on, whenever my brain offered that I was behind. I no longer allowed myself to look at my January goal as my beginning point. I redirected myself to my July 1st beginning point, and I focused on where I was at that point and the steps that I would take throughout the end of the year. Many times, that nagging feeling of being behind is you needing to pause, assess where you're at, and then reevaluate your plan going forward with the new information that you have.

Stacy Westfall:
I find it fascinating to think back to being in school. Let's say when I was a kid in high school. Many times the teachers would give assignments, and in that situation the goal was very clear and so was the endpoint. You need to write a paper and you do this date. I think it's interesting to look back and see what your habits were then. Did you start right away when the teacher gave the assignment, or did you wait until the last minute, or did you schedule it and spread it out over the time that was given? The other option is you could blow it off completely. But when I look back most of the time, everyone got it done. All of these choices were available to the students, but most people got some version of it turned in. Maybe they waited until the last minute, and maybe they didn't get the grade that they hoped for. But most students completed the assignment. So one last thought on being behind. Are you really behind or can you still get it done? Sometimes when we say we're behind, we're really saying, I wanted to get an A plus, not a B minus. If I could sum it all up in one sentence, it would be. Reevaluating and updating your goals is not a weakness. It is fully embracing real life and the learning process. That's what I have for you this week, 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.

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