Which comes first: Inspiration or Action?

Inspiration strikes…hopefully followed by action.

Although I often find that action is require first, and inspiration then follows. 

Lets break this down because that may have been a bit confusing.

EXTERNAL inspiration, watching someone do something amazing with their horse, often feels…inspiring. 

But how many people take action?

A few. But not as many as you would guess. Which is why people can get addicted to watching inspirational things. Those little doses of inspiration ‘feel’ like something is happening. With very little risk of failure.

Action comes with results. Results come with the possibility of failure. 

So it seems safer to watch inspirational things, rather than to take action and risk failure.

I dare you to take action. I dare you to fail. To learn. And to take more action.

For fun, sprinkle in some inspiration from outside sources 🙂

P.S.- My mind is racing with approximately 10 ideas a minute right now…which feels more like 1,000 which has inspired this post. I’m partly inspired because we are headed to the NRHA reining futurity to coach and support a customer who is living out a goal that she set years ago. It has been a long, long road and I’m so proud of her.

It is also inspired by a small notebook I bought for 50cents at the Dollar Store. I wrote ‘Black Friday Ideas’ on it and turned my mind loose. No idea too crazy to write down…wow, the floodgates are open!

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4 Comments

  1. Ron J. on June 11, 2018 at 11:10 am

    I sent in a question yesterday. After signing up, I thought I would read some blog posts.

    Had no idea that I would be awed by your grasp of life itself. I knew you were a great trainer, learned so much in a short time at the Equine, but had no idea you were also a mystic. That word may carry the wrong connotation to some, so let me digress in defining it, “Having an import not apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence; Beyond Ordinary Understanding.

    In a short time reading some of your posts my understanding of what it requires to truly understand a horse is to understand oneself and life. I just started my journey of horse at the ripe old age of 68. I think I am up to it now. So much to learn, but the grail still has lots of room for more of life’s essence.

    This is something I intuitively knew I had to tackle while there was still time. One of those paths in life you have to take to get to the next mindful challenge. Thank you for giving me that confidence. It is amazing where one will find inspiration, truth, and the pursuit of happiness. :o) Ron

  2. Emily Peterson on January 3, 2018 at 6:27 am

    What a great article. 🙂 I know exactly what you mean, I was many time in this situation – read/watch more to get inspired. And then again. And again… and at the end no action at all. I decided to change this and use Sheryl Sandberg words “Done is better than perfect” as my new approach. It was (and still is) hard but I can see that I can achieve much more. I am taking the risk, I know I can fail but I am learing along the way. Something what was very chellenging 6 months ago, is easy now. Thank you for your blog. It gives me a lot of motivation!

  3. Tom Shull on December 14, 2017 at 7:46 pm

    Great post!

    I’m looking at the quote on the back of that rider’s shirt. It reminds me of a story about Bill Parcells, the Hall of Fame NFL Coach, telling yet another story to his Dallas Cowboys football team (this account comes from the sportswriter Michael Lewis):

    Parcells didn’t see the Hart/Antuofermo fight in person but was told about it, years ago, by a friend and boxing trainer, Teddy Atlas. It stuck in his mind and now strikes him as relevant. Seated, at first, he begins to read aloud from the pages: how in this fight 29 years ago Hart was a well known big puncher heavily favored against the unknown Vito Antuofermo, how Hart knocked Antuofermo all over the ring, how Antuofermo had no apparent physical gifts except “he bled well.” “But,” Parcells reads, “he had other attributes you couldn’t see.” Antuofermo absorbed the punishment dealt out by his natural superior, and he did it so well that Hart became discouraged. In the fifth round, Hart began to tire, not physically but mentally. Seizing on the moment, Antuofermo attacked and delivered a series of quick blows that knocked Hart down, ending the fight.

    “This is the interesting part,” Parcells says, then reads, “When the fighters went back to their makeshift locker rooms, only a thin curtain was between them. Hart’s room was quiet, but on the other side he could hear Antuofermo’s cornermen talking about who would take the fighter to the hospital. Finally he heard Antuofermo say, ‘Every time he hit me with that left hook to the body, I was sure I was going to quit. After the second round, I thought if he hit me there again, I’d quit. I thought the same thing after the fourth round. Then he didn’t hit me no more.’

    “At that moment, Hart began to weep. It was really soft at first. Then harder. He was crying because for the first time he understood that Antuofermo had felt the same way he had and worse. The only thing that separated the guy talking from the guy crying was what they had done. The coward and the hero feel the same emotions. They’re both human.”

    When Parcells finishes, he says: “This is the story of our last game. We were Cyclone Hart.”

  4. Amy C. on November 26, 2017 at 2:43 am

    I loved this short article. Thank you so much for writing it; exactly what I needed to read right now. 🙂

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