Episode 325: The Missing Link: Why Some Keep Going and Others Burn Out
What if your fuel—not your effort—is the problem?
Stacy Westfall shares a surprising lesson in persistence, revealing why sheer determination isn’t enough—and what actually sustains lasting effort.
- Understand why intense effort alone often leads to diminishing returns—and what to do instead.
- Explore the subtle but crucial difference between belief-driven and willpower-driven action.
- Learn how to recognize when you’re operating from belief versus raw determination.
This episode uncovers the essential relationship between belief and effective action, providing riders with practical tools for achieving their goals—without exhausting themselves in the process.
Episode 325-The Missing LInk- Why Some Keep Going and Others Burn Out.mp3: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
Episode 325-The Missing LInk- Why Some Keep Going and Others Burn Out.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Speaker1:
It will wake you up and it will drive you to your breaking point. Quitting will feel like a relief, but that's because you were burning the wrong fuel.
Speaker2:
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.
Speaker1:
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 share one word with you. I'll explain why this word matters. I will share a very tangible short story of what it looks like in action, and I'll show you the missing piece that makes all the difference. Let's start with the short story. Enzo lost a shoe. He had it on at 7 p.m. and it was missing at 7 a.m.. There were only three places he had been during this time. After my ride, I did a little more groundwork in the arena while my husband was dragging. I briefly tied him in a stall while I got his grain, and then I put him into his paddock, which has a shed. You would think finding the shoe would be easy. When I noticed it was missing, I started with the shed. I do know there's a loose rubber mat, and I suspected maybe that's what pulled it off. I piled and sifted and lifted and pulled and found nothing. Then I went to the stall that I had tied him in the night before, and that was easy enough because it was pretty empty. Nothing there. So I began walking the arena. I walked it end to end in a grid pattern. While I was walking, I thought, I'm thankful. I have watched search teams on the TV shows doing this. I even took a flashlight, hoping that I would see the glint of steel poking out of the sand.
Speaker1:
Unfortunately, because my husband was dragging while I was doing the groundwork, the shoe could actually be anywhere. The drag could have picked it up and moved it. So instead of just having to search where I had been working, I had to search everywhere. I didn't find it, and so my next step was dragging. We have an easy to hook up drag, and then we have another drag that's much harder to hook up, especially if you're alone. But it does a much better job of turning the dirt over. At this point, I was home alone, but I wrestled with the harder drag, which hasn't been used in probably a year, so it was missing pins. Side note, Jesse, if you're listening to this, the pin for the Reese hitch is now on the tractor. So I finally got it wrestled together, and now I'm bleeding and I start dragging the arena. Also, please note this was not my plan for the day. Twice, while dragging the arena. My heart leapt when I saw something shiny. The first thing I found was from a dressage whip. Have you ever noticed that on the end of a lot of dressage whips, they'll have that little shiny metal cap piece? I turned up one of those and as I continued dragging, I had a similar heart leaping experience where I saw something else. And again, I turned up another small piece of metal.
Speaker1:
An hour later I stopped. Still no shoe. I had meetings, so I went inside to do my meetings, and then later I resumed the search. This time I enlisted help someone else searched the shed and the paddock. I searched the inside stall again. At this point, I actually walked over to the stall that I had put Enzo in because I didn't want his hoof to break up. I went over and I actually picked his foot up again to double check my sanity and see if he was actually really missing a shoe. Then I searched the indoor arena again for another hour. After that, I went inside, changed my schedule for the next day to include more searching, and I went to bed. At this point, you might be wondering why not just tack a different shoe on? And I will tell you that was plan B, but this shoe was just put on last week, and it's a specialty shoe that my farrier doesn't have in stock. And we just discussed this when he was resetting these last time. So yes, he could come back and tack another shoe on, but he would also have to take off the other front shoe and change that. So they both matched. Plus, it's a metal shoe and the horse has only been three places. Pause. What words come to mind when you think about this story? Without saying it outright, I have been demonstrating a feeling or a belief throughout the story.
Speaker1:
Can you name it? Take a moment and guess what was driving my actions? You may have come up with words like determination, persistence, focus, obsession and I'll own all of those. But what is the thing that's driving the determination? Let me say it a different way. What was creating the feeling of determination. I actually expect you to guess. Go ahead and guess. This actually matters because this will teach you about how to reach your goals. Determination is effort. What kept me searching wasn't just raw determination. It was the belief that the shoe had to be there. Literally, it has to be here. The closest I came to letting doubt creep in was when I walked in and picked up his hoof to double check my sanity. If I had let doubt creep in, my determination would have faded. But I believed the shoe was there. So my determination kept me taking action. Here's how it works. Belief is the reason I kept going. Determination is how I kept going. Belief is the fuel. Determination is the engine. Belief has two definitions. When I google it, it says an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. And the second definition is trust faith or confidence in someone or something. But I'm going to add my own ideas here, because technically, the all knowing internet also says that belief is not a feeling. Here's what it actually says.
Speaker1:
While belief can sometimes be associated with a feeling of certainty, in most contexts, a belief is not considered a feeling itself. It's more of a conviction or an opinion held to be true, separate from the emotional state of feeling. Key points to remember. Belief is cognitive. It involves accepting something as true based on evidence or reasoning. Feeling is emotional. Feelings are subjective experiences like happiness, sadness, or fear. That's what Google says. I respectfully disagree, and here's why. I know belief. I know how it feels in my body. I know disbelief. And I know raw determination very well. I knew as I was walking the arena the very first time, that what I was feeling was belief. Yes, I was determined. I was committed. Those are feelings. But have you ever felt those in a raw, unrefined form, determined in a raw, unrefined form? Is strong like fire in its raw form? It can feel like a whip driving you, pushing you relentless. That's not at all what I was feeling. However, if you listened to last week's podcast when I mentioned that I was really disappointed and the things that were going on in my head, that's an example. Back then, when I was beating myself up, that's an example of when I was determined and committed. But the fuel I was burning was not belief. Back then, I was burning something closer to self-worth or a desire to prove that I wasn't a failure. The switch that happened with me between the moment I dropped the rein, and a few months later when I showed and I was actually in full belief, it could be summarized as I learned how to burn belief as my fuel.
Speaker1:
Belief is the fuel. Determination is the engine. As a complete side note, I actually had this happen again this week. We recently bought a truck and it has a gas engine and we've been driving diesel trucks for years. Whenever I pull into a gas station, I am very aware that I could make the mistake out of habit and pull up to the diesel pumps. This week I was talking with my mom and I actually asked her to hold on for a second because that's how intentional I want to be about making sure that I'm putting the right fuel in the truck, because the wrong fuel is a really bad idea. That's the same thing when you're fueling your actions. I could identify when I was walking in the arena in my body, that I was running on belief as I was looking for the shoe. If belief is not a feeling, how can you explain the fact that I can physically feel the difference in determination, fueled by belief or determination fueled by raw willpower? Which brings me to my next point. Especially if you're like me. If you accidentally learned early on in life to burn negative emotion as fuel, you might fear that if you back off, you won't do anything.
Speaker1:
And here's the truth belief begets action. Belief is not sitting in the house thinking the shoe will find itself. Belief is believing. You can figure it out. Belief is searching because you believe you will find it. If you truly believe, then you will be in action. Not the frantic, obsessive hamster on a wheel type action, but the tortoise and the hare type action. Belief is the scientific process. It makes a map of where you've been. It creates theories on where you can look and what to try next. Belief hooks up the drag that works best, even though it's though it's harder. Belief backtracks and moves forward. It searches the same areas again from different angles. Belief asks for help from someone else. Belief checks the places that seem impossible. And belief goes to bed and gets a good night's sleep. Because belief has the power to walk away. Because when you believe, you trust yourself to come back. Belief decides it's worth trying again. Other people can see your belief. I remember in 2017, sitting in the stands in Oklahoma City watching someone win the reigning Futurity after 27 years of believing. 27 years. It was like a movie, too. He was the last rider to go that night. Every maneuver he completed spins circles. The place got louder and louder. Many people in the stands knew how long he'd been showing there. And when he was done, the minute they announced his score, because he was the last one to go, everyone knew he had won.
Speaker1:
He was still in the arena. He had tears in his eyes. We all did, because that's a lot of belief. Belief is not harsh, but it is persistent. Belief is one more attempt and another and another. But it's also a regathering regrouping, recovering and going again. Because you believe. Raw determination will keep you up. It will wake you up and it will drive you to your breaking point. Quitting will feel like a relief, but that's because you were burning the wrong fuel. In the next episode, I'm going to share with you how belief is the bridge between your yearly theme and your actionable goals. If you haven't created your yearly theme yet, now's the time. I've been receiving lots of them in my inbox. Thank you to everyone who has told me how helpful the worksheets been, and I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to read the different ones that have been submitted here, or if I'm going to share them in my weekly emails. But I am going to go ahead and share one with you today. As I read it, think about how differently this theme will play out. If it's fueled by belief or if it's fueled by raw determination. I hope she's listening and I hope she chooses belief. Here's what she wrote. I struggle with hiding myself, avoiding new situations out of fear of failure.
Speaker1:
My theme is the Year of Joyful Hunger. I want to be hungry for new experiences. Hungry for new mistakes. Hungry to live each day. Ooh, that's a good one. Ripe for the picking. And I believe you'll learn a lot doing it. Please keep me posted. That's what I have for you this week. Oh, okay. And for those who can't stand an open story loop, here's the end of the shoe story. The next morning, fueled by a belief, I started again. And this next part makes no sense. And when I shared it with the other person who helped me, she also agreed. It makes no sense, but it's true. The next morning, I walked back out to the empty shed, thinking of far fetched ideas and between the hay net and the automatic waterer, there it was lightly covered in sawdust. Mind you, this is an area that had already been checked multiple times by both of us. And what I mean here is the day before I had literally raked this area bare, and I'm absolutely sure the shoe was not in that spot. But somehow, after the final checking when the sawdust was redistributed, the shoe appeared. The only real explanation I have is that this podcast needed to be heard by someone, and I would never have recorded it if it hadn't been for that darn missing shoe. That's what I have for you this week. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you again in the next episode.
Speaker2:
If you enjoy listening to Stacy's podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.
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