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Riding into the New Year

By: Virginia Shaw is Head Trainer of Behind the Blue LLC

As we say good bye to 2019, many of us as horseman have reached new heights, we may have reached new training goals, new competing goals, or maybe we just fought that fear and did that thing that has scared us for a long time. Some of us have suffered, perhaps injury, could be horse or human. Needed to be reworded --> It could be the setbacks you had to overcome; whether it be the horse we bought isn’t going to work out, or we have changed trainers or facilities, and some have just suffered downright tragedy. Well, good thing for all of us…it’s a new year!

How do you plan on riding into the New Year?

Somedays, as I sit in the barn, I think about all the things I wish to accomplish. I’m not going to lie, many of them scare me, and a few of them I sit there and think, “I could never do that”. Reality is what’s stopping me? Or what’s stopping us? Is it time?

It’s easy to sit there and say we don’t have time, between teaching, being a parent, and just trying to keep up with the day to day, that seems like a reasonable excuse. It could be a lack of motivation, there is always tomorrow right? I’ll start tomorrow, I’ll ride my horse next week, I will go to that lesson in next week, tomorrow, tomorrow there’s always tomorrow.

And then there’s fear….when you own a horse, what are you not afraid of? Fear can stop us dead in our tracks. The funny thing about fear, that it is usually what you want to do most. Things that scare you are also the things that excite you.

I say in 2020 we start running towards our fears. Do the thing that scares you. Try a new discipline, try working with a trainer, take a lesson, take a clinic, go on that trail ride, buy that horse, go to the beach, book and plan that vacation that takes you to Ireland to ride ponies, start a new program and create a completion goal. Do the thing(s) that makes you feel alive.

There will always be set backs or things that pop up that change the path some, but for the most part we can figure it out. Why not try for what we want, rather than fear it?

So here is my advice as we ride into 2020:

"I'd rather regret the things I've done than the things I haven't done."~Lucille Ball

Happy New Year and Happy Horsin’

Virginia Shaw
Head Trainer of Behind the Blue LLC;
www.btbequestrian.com
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