When Small Frustrations Fill the Bucket

My wife, Pam, and I recently remodeled what we affectionately call the Game Room in our circa 1954 house. The “new floors” part was easy because we decided to hire it out. We had planned to redo the baseboards from the very beginning.

After the floors were in, we thought the room would look a lot better if the two paneled walls were painted. We set aside a weekend to get it finished.

One thing that is important to me is efficiency. Time should not be wasted. I told Pam I wanted to get all the supplies before we started so we would not be running back and forth. We shopped, prepped, and started painting.

As we painted, we realized the other two walls needed a refresh too. Since we already had the paint out, we figured we should just do them. That meant we needed more paint.

While we were rolling the walls, we realized the old outlets needed to be replaced. So, we took a trip to Lowe’s.

There we were, standing in the electrical outlet and switch aisle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pam pick up new light switches.

I lost it.

Not in a dramatic way. But in that quiet, grumpy, edgy way that happens when your emotional bucket is already overflowing. I was certainly no fun to be around.

My bucket had overflowed.

Why Overwhelm Often Comes From Small Things

I had a client this week who was struggling with feeling overwhelmed. You could easily substitute horses and riding for remodeling. Her story was remarkably similar.

She had a set of expectations for her ride that day. Along the way, things kept popping up:

* A broken fence board

* A shredded grazing muzzle

* A rat’s nest of burrs in her horse’s mane

* A minor cut on her horse’s leg

* An empty fly spray bottle

* A broken cross tie

Then finally, she reached for her dressage whip as she walked to the ring.

Gone.

There are times in life when we face the kind of adversity that understandably overwhelms our ability to cope. It is my hope for all of us that those moments are rare.

What is far more common, in my experience, are the small frustrations that chafe against our expectations. No one of them is a big deal on its own. Yet each one slowly fills the bucket until one final, ordinary inconvenience pushes us over the edge.

Expectations, Planning, and Stress

If we are lucky, we realize it before we double down.

I had to apologize to Pam for my grumpiness. I explained that my reaction had nothing to do with her very reasonable desire to update the little things as we refreshed the room. It had everything to do with the way I use planning and expectations to cope with stress.

Each unexpected change added time and effort that I had not predicted or planned for. Every additional task added pressure to my carefully constructed plan.

I suspect many riders do the same thing.

We create expectations for our rides, our horses, our schedules, and ourselves. Then reality unfolds differently than we imagined. Sometimes it is not the big setback that gets us. Sometimes it is simply the accumulation of small disappointments and inconveniences.

The Mindsets That Help Us Cope Better

We talk a lot about growth mindsets, resilient mindsets, and champion mindsets.

But what about a:

* “We will still be okay if everything does not go according to plan” mindset

* “Life rarely unfolds exactly the way we expect” mindset

* “What I do not accomplish today does not determine my value as a human being” mindset

* “Tomorrow is another day” mindset

Those mindsets would have helped me lean into what I truly value:

Kindness. Partnership. Gratitude.

Not just in remodeling a room.

Not just in horsemanship.

But in life.

What mindset would make your life and horsemanship better?

~ Paul

#Leadership #Mindset #Resilience #EmotionalIntelligence #PerformancePsychology #GrowthMindset #Coaching #Horsemanship #PersonalDevelopment

There is nothing like a bit of pressure to clarify what truly matters.

This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed for the Plaidcast podcast, Tonya Johnston’s Inside Your Ride. I will admit, I was a bit starstruck. Through her book and podcast, Tonya has done as much as anyone to bring mental skills coaching into the mainstream equestrian conversation in the US.

I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to share the Riding Far story. We believe we offer something different in the equestrian world. Not only through our commitment to integrated expertise, but in how we use that expertise. Our goal is to help others rise, not to rise above them.

Toward the end of the conversation, Tonya asked a simple but challenging question. What is one practical tool people can use to elevate performance and engagement?

In that moment, I felt the weight of trying to distill more than 30 years of experience into a single idea.

Then it came to me. The one thing Justin and I return to every week in our often casually chaotic conversations.

Intention.

Intention is a powerful tool. It shapes and focuses our experience, connecting it to meaning and value. By simply setting an intention, we begin to organize our awareness, focus, experience, knowledge, and skills around what matters most in that moment.

Try this with me. Think of a recent experience. Run it through your mind a few times. Each time, set a different intention. Notice how the experience shifts.

Like many effective mental skills practices, intention helps place us in a positive and purposeful frame. It directs our attention toward what we want to gain, rather than what we fear or want to avoid.

It also honors the multi dimensional nature of our time with horses. When we approach similar experiences with different intentions, we begin to access more depth, more texture, and more meaning. That richness is part of resilience. Intention supports that process.

I had already set my intention for the week, but now I think I will add another. I am going to play with intention. Before each interaction with my three horses, I will pause and choose one. Then I will notice what changes.

Will you join me? ~ Paul

PC – Jordan Koepke Photography

#PsychSaturday #RidingFar #EquestrianLife #HorseTraining #EquestrianMindset #MentalSkills #SportsPsychology #HorseRider #EquestrianCoach #HorseConnection #MindfulRiding #EquestrianPerformance #HorseLife #RiderDevelopment #EquestrianCommunity #TrainYourMind #RideWithPurpose #EquestrianTraining #HorseHumanConnection #PerformanceMindset #GrowthInTheSaddle

One of the bittersweet parts of my job is when my clients no longer need me. It is that moment when someone feels confident and resourced enough to strike out on their own. Whether it comes after a few sessions or a few years, it fills me with deep satisfaction. At the same time, there is always a quiet sense of loss.

I care deeply about my clients and I invest fully in helping them achieve the goals they set for themselves. In the process of supporting, guiding, and mentoring them through their challenges, we build a strong and trusting relationship. I get to know them in a deeply personal way. Because of that, when the time comes for them to move forward on their own, it can be hard to let go.

The “letting go” is not something that only happens at the end. Often it is an ongoing challenge throughout the process. When you care deeply, there are moments when you want to control the choices your client makes, if only to help them avoid pain you can see coming. I certainly have my own “Papa Bear” moments. When they arise, I try to notice them, acknowledge them, and then return to supporting my clients in a way that respects their responsibility for themselves and their choices.

It does not matter whether you are a therapist, a mental coach, a trainer, or a riding instructor. Our role is to guide in a way that builds real independence and genuine self confidence. This does not mean pushing people off a cliff to see if they can fly. It means helping them grow the knowledge, skill, experience, resilience, and belief in themselves that they need to succeed. Along the way, we give them opportunities to test their wings.

There are times when my clients feel frightened, anxious, or uncertain. There are moments when hope feels distant and change seems hard to believe in. In those moments it can be tempting to jump in and fix things for them. Instead, I often invite them to borrow my belief in them and in the possibility of change. That belief is not built on blind optimism. It is grounded in decades of experience and hard work standing beside people as they find their path forward.

This is how we help our clients unfurl their wings.

And eventually, fly on their own.

~ Paul

PC-Erin Gilmore Photography

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Have you ever had a stretch of time when you just felt grumpy for no apparent reason?

For the last several weeks I have noticed a reduced patience for what I perceive as the nuttiness of our world. It is unfortunately all too easy to find examples wherever we look: economics, politics, education, popular culture, and of course the equestrian world.

Most recently, I have been struck by how often representatives of the competitive disciplines lament the lack of young, gritty riders who grew up riding “naughty” backyard ponies, galloping bareback, and jumping anything that crossed their paths.

In a similar vein, I have seen more and more comments about the increase in timidity, anxiety, fear, and tears among young riders. What has been most disheartening is the number of mean spirited and derogatory remarks coming from people who are in a position to teach our children. I am certain their students pick up on that lack of empathy and the quiet contempt beneath it.

I understand wistful sentimentality. I understand the sense of loss that comes from reflecting on a bygone era. What I do not understand, and cannot align with, is the lack of investment and creativity directed toward doing something positive about the perceived shortcomings of our current reality.

When my children were small, my wife had a refrain she repeated often: “Requests, not complaints.” It was her gentle way of shifting their thinking from what I would call a problem frame to a solution frame. What Pam and I eventually realized was that it was not enough to want our children to change their perspective. We had to change our own.

I spend my days helping riders work through trauma, fear, and anxiety. In my experience, addressing the fear itself often pales in comparison to addressing the negative self judgment and shame riders feel for having those emotions in the first place. That shame does not appear out of nowhere. It is shaped, in part, by our collective attitude toward emotion and its expression in our sport.

Sometimes I wonder what might happen if, instead of complaining about riders today, we got busy building solutions. What if we invested real resources into programs designed to develop joyful, skilled, resilient, emotionally and physically healthy riders and horses, rather than continuing to pour money into venues where young riders and their families are required to spend tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars simply to compete?

My son Justin calls himself a grumpy optimist. I am borrowing that moniker today.

In the spirit of optimism, I am choosing to align myself with the voices in our industry that respond to the real needs of today’s riders and modern horses with engagement, positive energy, creativity, and compassion. Let’s work to change the culture.

So here is my request. Will you join me?

~ Paul

#PsychSaturday
#RidingFar
#RiderMindset
#ResilientRiders
#ConfidentRider
#EmotionalFitness
#ModernHorsemanship
#EquestrianCulture
#ChangeTheCulture
#GrumpyOptimist

Well over twenty years ago, I was trained in the art and methods of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, a collection of change-oriented techniques developed by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. While many of these strategies have been enormously helpful to my clients, a few simple ideas pack the biggest punch. One of them is what they called the Law of Positive Intent.

Simply put, the idea is that behind every behavior or statement is a positive intention, even if the behavior itself is ineffective, harmful, or poorly expressed. In other words, when we or others do unhelpful, frustrating, or hurtful things, the underlying motive is often understandable or self-protective.

Examples from our riding lives are easy to find. I think of myself when I am overriding. Pulling on the reins, body full of tension, heels creeping up in an effort to use more leg. The resulting picture is one of imbalance, conflict, and tension between me and my horse. Yet it is easy to imagine, or at least I hope so, that I am simply trying to create quality movement or avoid failure. Helpful? No. Understandable? Yes.

We all know about human biases. One prominent example is the actor-observer bias. This is our tendency to judge ourselves by our intentions and circumstances, while judging others by their actions and assumed traits. When this dynamic becomes hurtful or unproductive, it is still easy to understand why it happens. Humans are meaning-makers. We try to understand the world using the information available to us. We have access to our own internal states, but not to those of others. We only see their behavior.

Becoming aware of these biases and intentionally looking for positive intent in ourselves and in others can be a game changer. It allows us to reframe situations in ways that reduce conflict, improve communication, build trust, and create better strategies for meeting needs. This does not excuse harmful behavior. We can acknowledge positive intent while still setting clear boundaries and holding ourselves and others accountable.

Join me in playing with this idea in the coming week. Take a frustrating situation or interaction and apply the Law of Positive Intent to yourself and to others. Separate intention from behavior. Name the positive intention the behavior or words might be serving. Then consider what other strategies could meet the same need. As you do, notice what begins to shift. ~ Paul

#PsychSaturday #RidingFar #LawOfPositiveIntent #PositiveIntent #MindsetMatters #SelfAwareness #HumanBehavior #PersonalGrowth