How To Stop Negative Thinking For Better Horse Riding Confidence

Are negative thoughts affecting your horse riding confidence? Use this simple technique to feel more positive and confident.

There really is a mind/body connection. Your thoughts, feelings and behaviours are all connected.

So, your thoughts affect how you feel and that affects what actions you take.

If you have negative or unhelpful thoughts like

“what if my horse spooks?”

“what if I fall off?”

“what if people laugh at me?”

then you feel anxious, worried or afraid.

And, if you ride when you're feeling that way, you’ll be tense and reactive – expecting the bad stuff that you just know is going to happen!

And your tension, of course, affects your horse!

Or you might simply choose not to ride at all.

Negative thought = anxious feelings = not riding

Choose a positive over a negative thought

If you’ve struggled with negative thinking, you know how much it affects your horse riding confidence. 

And, you’ve probably tried just stopping those negative thoughts ... pushing them out of your mind ... but that hasn’t worked.

That’s because you can’t just turn off thinking.

Thoughts run almost continuously through our minds.

But, your mind can only focus on one thought at a time.

So, what you can do instead is give your mind something more helpful to think about by re-framing thoughts so that your mind becomes more resourceful.

Re-Frame Those Negative Thoughts

Re-framing is one of the most effective techniques for retraining your mind and therefore changing your behaviour.

Re-framing is simply changing the meaning of an experience or situation by putting a different frame around it or looking at it from a different perspective.

Sometimes all you need to do is ask a different question.

For example, instead of looking at a situation as a failure, you can ask yourself

“Is this a problem or an opportunity?”

If you struggle with canter transitions, instead of telling yourself ...

“I’ll never get this!”

you could ask ...

“What do I need to learn in order to do canter transitions better?”

See Things From Another Perspective

By re-framing you see things differently. You give it a different interpretation which results in having a different feeling.

And when you change the feeling, you change your actions and behaviours.

You can re-frame experiences, words or phrases, and even memories.

For example, when I lost my riding confidence a dozen years ago, I could have looked at that as the end of my riding and coaching career.

And I could consider it as a horrible experience in my past.

Instead, I chose to look at it as a challenge and an opportunity to become a stronger, better and more empathetic rider, horse trainer and coach.

And I’m grateful for all that I have learned from that experience. 

Ask These Questions To Re-Frame Your Negative Thoughts 

Ask these questions when something goes wrong:

• What’s great about this?
• What's the opportunity in this?
• How might this obstacle be a blessing in disguise?
• What can I learn from this?
• What am I willing to do to make it what I want and how can I enjoy that process?

What experiences, situations or memories can you re-frame from negative to positive to get you unstuck and moving forward with your riding? Share in the comments.

In my next blog post, I’ll share 3 strategies for quickly moving from feeling anxious to calm.