Hello, and welcome back to the blog. Today, I am sharing the second of a six blog post series called ‘The Confident Rider’. If you missed the first post where I talk about reasons why equestrians have confidence knocks alongside some case studies of my own experience, check it out here. In today’s post, I am discussing some steps to help rebuild confidence. It’s important to remember it is a long game and it will take the time it takes.
So here are 5 steps you can take to start to slowly increase your confidence and be the rider you want to be!
1. Visualisation
This is a tricky one to get into but it does help if you can calm your mind a little. By visualising, I mean taking some time before you ride, perhaps as you’re driving to the yard or as your groom your horse to visualise what you want from the ride. What will you work on? How long for? How will it feel? Really take some time to consider these points so that it feels like you have already ridden the session before you actually do.
I remember someone once said that they rode through their entire dressage test in their head before going into the ring and when it came to actually riding, they felt they had already ridden it. As a result, they showed more focus and less nerves. This same principle can be applied to your every day ride. If you are organised in advance, this can be the little push you need to get back in the saddle, because, well, you’ve already done it in your mind!
2. Set achievable goals
Consider the big goals you would like to achieve. It could be something broad like ‘compete in a 70cm showjumping class’. Then, break that down into steps you need to take to get there. For example, you would need to have an established walk, trot and canter, you would need to have rhythm, you would need to have a fit horse etc. Then, you can break these down further. Perhaps your first port of call is to get your horse fit so you create a fitness program for 8 weeks. Then you can plan individual sessions down to the exercises you want to do. Give yourself logical, baby steps to follow each time you ride.
Your goals might be even smaller than this. See the flow chart below if you are at the point where your confidence is so low you don’t even want to get on.
This is an extreme example, but the point is that you can start super small to rebuild your confidence and take the pressure off. Regardless of what your goals are, remember they need to be achievable. Therefore, it’s important to simplify them down to their smallest form so you have a solid starting point and set both yourself and your horse up for success.
3. Lessons
Lessons can be a great way to build confidence, but only if you have the right instructor. Do some research and talk to other people about who they would recommend. You want to find an instructor who is empathetic, understanding and who listens to where you’re at and responds with well planned sessions to suit.
Once you have your goals in mind, and have them broken down, go for a lesson and let them know what you would like to work on. It can really give you a boost to have someone on the ground helping you along.
4. Create a consistent routine
Sometimes, we lose our nerve with things if we haven’t done them in a while and feel out of practice. One of the best ways to battle this is to create a consistent routine so that we are used to it and don’t fall out of the habit. On the other hand, the longer we leave it, the more time we have to ponder things, the more excuses we come up with and then we procrastinate.
In the book ‘Atomic Habits’, James Clear discusses how to be successful in building habits. It fits perfectly with what we are trying to do by creating a consistent routine. You need to build the habit, but you need to be specific. There’s no time for wishy-washy ideas here. You need to set an Implementation Intention. This means choosing when, where and what you are going to do. For example:
I will RIDE at 4:30PM ON TUESDAY’S AND THURSDAY’S at the STABLES.
This then creates a specific mission statement for you to stick to. Clear also says not to miss your habit more than once because then you start to build a new habit of not doing it.
5. Reflection
This is a really useful thing to do if you feel you are lacking confidence. If you keep tabs on your sessions, you can see what actually happened and start to notice any patterns. Notice, did anything actually go wrong? How have you felt? How could you increase your efforts just 1% since the last ride?
There are lots of ways you can reflect. You can do a good ol’ pen and paper reflection or there are many apps you could use. You could simply use your notes on your phone, maybe you create yourself your own template?
I quite enjoy using an app because I find I always have my phone with me so it’s the easiest option to jot down some ideas in my car before I head home or while Harry is eating his dinner. I like to use Ridely for it. It shows you a month view so you can see what days you worked your horse and it will ask you how the ride went, how long you rode for and there’s a notes section you can provide more specific information on exercises, feelings etc.
There is an example of what it looks like below. I forgot to add more sessions into January so there’s only 3 sessions logged but at least you can see how it looks. If you want the paid version, it allows you to plan your activities in advance. You can also access lots of training programmes but personally I think it’s quite expensive so I just use the free version.
Another free feature is the goals section. This allows you to set goals and then set tasks to help you meet them. I find that quite helpful too and if you’re trying to rebuild confidence, it can help to lay out your plans in little baby steps.
I hope this was useful in providing some ideas on things you can do to help yourself get back on track. The main thing, I believe, is to be patient with yourself and to set yourself up for success.
The next post will cover some mental barriers which could be holding you back from your goals in the saddle so stay tuned!
Happy Horsing!
BBequines 
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