"How Can Positive Habits Transform Life for Me and My Horse?"

In this episode, we take a closer look at how everyday habits, both human and equine, shape behaviour, wellbeing, and the relationship we build with our horses.

We explore what positive habits really look like for you and your horse, how they form, and why consistency matters more than perfection. From small routines around handling, training, and care to the internal habits we carry as humans ,such as expectations, emotional regulation, and timing, we discuss how these patterns influence learning and trust.

Building positive habits isn’t about rigid rules or doing things “right” all the time. It’s about awareness, compassion, and creating environments where both horse and human can succeed. This episode invites you to reflect on the habits you’re reinforcing, notice what’s working (and what isn’t), and make intentional choices that support welfare, learning, and a calmer, more connected partnership.

Voice note your questions on WhatsApp to +353 85 143 8688 to have your questions answered on the Podcast.

Meet Your Hosts

Barbara Hardman (Bright Horse Equiation)
www.brighthorse.ie

📧barbara.j.hardman@brighthorse.ie ☎️+353 85 143 8688

 Jen Nash (The Equine Method)
www.theequinemethod.co.uk

📧 Info@TheEquineMethod.co.uk ☎️+44 7902920923

Transcript

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Today we're diving into an important topic about habit formation. I really encourage you to go back and listen to my communication with horses and ourselves because this next episode leads really nicely into that. So the two really complement each other. So we're going to talk about habit formation and how to navigate the challenges that come with it for both you and your horse and what that means for your training. Yeah, we're going to explore the science behind habits because let's face it, forming new habits is really hard, and fundamentally, behaviour modification is on a very basic level. It's just the formation of new habits. You know, behaviours that horses do that we do that we don't like are essentially bad habits, especially when they're behaviours that get repeated over time. It's essentially a habit. So what we want to do is stop performing those ones and actually form new habits. So we're going to talk about how this can apply to both you and your horse, and hopefully share some practical tips to help you guys build some more positive routines for yourselves and your own lives, but more importantly for the podcast with your horses. Because it's really important to understand that how we form habits and how we think and reflect on things in our own brains and our memories are very different from how a horse does. So what works to form habits for us isn't necessarily the same infrastructure in the brain that works for forming habits for horses. That's right. So there are researchers like Charles Duhick and James Clear who have written books and extensively studied habits in humans and showing how small changes can they can lead to more significant improvements over time. And this is a concept that we can apply to our horses. So the the book by James Clear, Atomic Habits, highly recommend if you haven't read it. Really interesting. It's definitely a book that I found I had to pick up and put down again because there's so much information, but there's definitely little bits in there about habit formation that I didn't know that I was like, oh, this is actually really simple and makes a lot of sense. And as we go through this podcast, we're going to talk about some of those things and where they actually come into it with regards to the research. So there's how the biology works and how the psychology works from a human perspective and also a horse perspective, which, as I alluded to, operate totally different fields. And then there's also the social side of things where we put this extra pressure on ourselves that it's somehow a moral failing if we can't break a habit or start a new habit, or if we're unable to, we see it as some kind of moral failing that we've done something wrong. But as you'll find out in this episode, it's actually really, really hard to break habits and form new ones, and it has nothing to do with willpower because willpower doesn't exist, and we'll get into that, and that it's actually so much more about learning psychology, and also there's this idea that you know, oh, I'm not motivated enough. Like, oh, I don't have motivation, how do I find motivation? And like you just said there, Barbara, about willpower, it just doesn't really exist. Like you can get motivated for a moment or two, but it doesn't, it's very short-lasting, doesn't last a long time, it's not durable. So very often I find myself, we're all we're all human, myself included in this, is that it can be so demoralizing when you know you wake up in the morning, you're like, I'm gonna do this and this, and you might do three days of you know going out for an early morning walk, going to the gym, and then you don't keep that up, and it feels like because you broke the sequence, it feels like a failing, but it's actually not a failing because what we're gonna talk about is that habit formation is a little bit more complicated than just doing the same thing every single day. You don't always have to do something every single day to form a new habit, it's more about your consistency over a longer period of time, but we're not gonna get into it yet, we're gonna carry on with the episode, but the good stuff is coming, I promise. We also might do a little bit of challenging the old adage of you can't teach an old dog new tricks, which I often hear with with my canine clients, and just dive into the fallacy that that is, um, and that learning and learning throughout life, although it does change throughout different stages of your life, you can still absolutely, and so can your horse learn and develop into an older age. So we want to dive into that as well because I think that's something that we often we often kind of get stuck on, yeah, yeah. And if I don't want to say get out of jail free card, but sometimes I think we almost use it as an excuse because we know it's going to be hard, and you go, ah, well, you know, they're too old now, they can't learn anything new now. And I just think when we're thinking about animal welfare, we're not doing our animals justice because that animal could actually learn something new that would improve their welfare and keep you safer, and by default, improving your own welfare and safeguarding yourself. So, no, learning is possible, and we can change habits. I think the golden secret is just knowing the process, and that's what isn't spoken about enough. But it's knowing the process and then doing the process. So there's two parts to this. And uh, if you're ready, Barbara, I think we'll we'll just jump into it. 100% away we go. Little intro, interlude music. So I kind of want to start with January. Um, you know, it is the most popular time for us all to start a new behavior, and it is also the one time that is the most likely for you to fail to start a new habit. Yeah, isn't it isn't it so funny how we have this whole New Year's resolutions thing. So it's like the worst time of year, guys. Worst. It's that I'll start on Monday. The diet starts on Monday, it'll start in January. We um they're they're what's called, is it uh I think they're called like um they're event days or I think some psychologists have called them meaningless days to start something because they don't actually mean anything. Um it doesn't actually matter when you start a habit. Um you can choose to start one right now. You can choose to end one whenever you like. It doesn't have to be a birthday, it doesn't have to be January the first, it doesn't have to be any kind of special event. Um we like to think of things, we like to have sim again, this is like there's symbolism and there's you know moral ideas behind a lot of habit formation where we like we like to mark it by an occasion before we start something. This was the moment I the the come to Jesus moment where I then you know and all other faiths available when we decided to to go and and do something, but really it is just whenever you make the decision, and hopefully through this podcast, you'll you'll find how you want to do that to make that habit, and do you really want to? Because that's what's going to drive you forward. And habit formation itself can take anywhere between 18 to 254 days to form a new habit. And I would always encourage people to form new habits rather than stop a habit. Yeah. So I've because again, it you cannot, as soon as you say I don't want to do this anymore, you're going to continue to do it because you cannot not a behavior. You know, it's the dead man test all over again. We talk about this when it comes to training our horses. You cannot train a not behavior, you have to train a do behavior. So it's really important when we find you know, we we we are realistic about our time scale and go, okay, this might take me a year. That's okay. Yeah, you know, it's okay that it's gonna take a year. So, for example, I to again talk about moral failings, I'm even stumbling over saying it because it I feel ashamed of my habit. Um, but I smoked for a very long time. Um, a very long time, and you know, it's a bad habit, right? Even though it's an ad it's an it's an addictive drug, right? We can we can say that, but we call it a bad habit, um, and it's a nasty habit, it's an unhealthy habit. And most smokers will tell you that they don't want to do it, and you know, but it's very hard. And every time you try and quit, you know, it's a very hard habit. So you're like, what do you say? I don't want to smoke. Okay. So what are you gonna do instead? Yeah. What are you gonna do instead? Where's your positive, where's your additive, where's your your changing? Um, and then we also go, Oh great, I've been I've been a week off them. Well, it takes 18 to 254 days. So the measurable time frame of that, so if you get a week or you get a month and then you quote unquote fall off the wagon, you feel like you failed, well no, you're still going, you've got a whole year to go. Just if you go, if you do a month of of let's say being a non-smoker, because there's the additive, you know, it's a habit, you're a non-smoker, not a smoker, and you do a month and then you have a day or two where you smoke, we feel like we've already failed. Well, no, because you have a month of forming that habit, and then you have two days of not of not habit, and you've got the another 200 days to go. Yeah. So that's fine, you're still winning. That's that's the important thing. So you just go, okay, that's fine. You know, that day I was a smoker, now back to being a non-smoker. Absolutely. Um, so it's really important to just remember that. And sorry, just for the the the sake of the listeners who are interested in the science, um, that is from we're gonna talk a good bit about this particular researcher who is the lay Lally Jen's gonna read it from me because I can't read that name. Lally et al. Yeah, Lally. So that was by uh a group called Lally et al. or et al. however your pronunciation is in 2010. And one of the there's two sentences that I really like from the study as well, which summarise really nicely what we've just been saying, and this is quote for quote from their paper. Missing one opportunity to perform a behavior did not materially affect the habit formation process. With repetition of behaviour in a consistent context, automacity, well that's a big word, increases following an asymptomatic curve which can be modelled at the individual level. So big fancy words. Basically what Barbara said basically missing an opportunity to perform the behavior did not materially affect the actual outcome. So out of all the participants, so there were 96 people who took part in that study, and 95% of them achieved the new habit formation, and the habits were um either to choose to eat or drink um after doing exercise. So basically trying to you know have a protein shake or you know eat something healthier after doing some sort of exercise, um, which might not seem like the most challenging thing, but if you think about forming a habit over the course of a year, like that is actually quite a big routine because some of us might go for a walk with your dog. Do you automatically come home and remember to have a drink of water or have a piece of fruit or something? It's actually still a habit to form. Yeah, and what's really important about what you've said there, Jen, and I will repeat this throughout this podcast, so prepare for broken tape, Barbara. Um, it's an additive. All these researchers, and this is again, it's I find it really interesting looking at human behavioral psychology when you're doing these researches too, is that we ask humans to add something when we're doing a behavior. We never say, okay, come in from a run, as Jen says, and don't drink water, don't drink a porch protein shake, or don't drink coffee. We uh we we never ask for a don't behavior, we ask for a do behavior. It's really, really, really important to remember that and that's the one it's going to take home because that applies to us, our horses, and our dogs, and it's the one consistent throughout. So researchers and their methods are additives because we know that that supports learning and supports habit formation. So, you know, what these research researchers have shown us, if we go back to our January example, you know, lots of people like to either do j dry January or you know, they like to go running, the two of the big ones. Um, and you start off first of January, I'm that's it. I'm going running or I'm going doing whatever. The runners tend to succeed a little bit more than dry January because again, there's your there's your negative. I'm going to go for a run. It's an additive. I'm going to stop drinking, is you know, instead of saying, you know, say you're taking me away, so you're still saying it's the dead man test, that you can't you can't do a don't behaviour is not something that you can learn how to do. So I know it's really, really important. And one of the key take-homes from this paper as well is like our runners. If, for example, for the first two weeks of January they got out three days a week and they were able to do a good bit of running, and then week four they took a break. We start to then feel like we failed in our habit. However, you've still started to create habit acquisition. So you just go, okay, that's fine. I took this week off, start again next week. You know? Or not even that, is it? It's not even start again, it's continue. It's not starting, continue, thank you. Yes, even I use the incorrect terminology there because it's so ingrained in our brain that there's some kind of moral failing that if we don't have the quote unquote willpower which doesn't exist and we don't push on, then therefore we failed, which is just so wrong. It's it's not how learning happens, it's not how it's not how we work. Because I mean, even think of it from an evolutionary perspective, if you don't believe me that it's it it doesn't take a load of willpower. Like if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective, if we went, okay, it's let's pick January again, and we need to go hunting, we've had no food, it's all winter, we're Neolithic tribe people, we need to go and find food, and you start hunting, you don't find anything, you just go, Well, I might as well just give up. I didn't have enough willpower. Like it it doesn't track, it just doesn't. We just keep going, you know. We are designed to quote unquote not achieve something and keep going and have the drive. Yeah, like and I would argue that's a very willful person that's got a lot of willpower. Just because you don't succeed at something doesn't mean it lacks willpower. There's a lot of willpower, and like that's why we have all those expressions, like you know, I say picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and going on. Like there's a reason we've evolved as a species to where we are now. All I all I would say is you've said willpower doesn't exist, then you've just gone on saying that takes a lot of willpower. Uh yeah, I meant from a perspective of like, you know, if you fail at a habit, we say, Oh, I didn't have enough willpower, I didn't have the willpower to do it, and yet you still look for ways to support the changes that you want to make, and that's when you're like, Well, that means you're you know, you've got a lot of will to want to do that, so therefore you cannot have had it it can't be a case that you didn't have enough willpower to achieve it because you keep searching for the solutions. So that's what I mean, as in like it doesn't exist as a reason for forming the habit. So I've probably explained that very badly. No, I I get it now, I understand now. So saying you could have all the willpower in the world to go and catch your prey, we're we're still talking about like nithandrels, yeah and catch nothing, and it was actually because the bison or the deer weren't in that area on that day, and it had nothing to do with the amount of will that you had, it was the fact that the environmental factors weren't there to support that behaviour being performed, the behaviour being hunting physically could not be performed because the deer were not in that part of the forest on that day, despite how willing you wanted it to be. Exactly. So your failing in catching that deer was not a lack of willpower, yes, and yet we are made to think that you couldn't do that behavior because you didn't have enough willpower, and that's what I mean is in like just think of it as not existing because in relation to habit forming, it it just think of it as a fallacy because all of us are willful people, all of us have enough willpower to achieve whatever we want. It's got nothing to do with willpower, so I just take it off the table and go, the fact that the fact that you're even listening to this podcast tells me that you've got a lot of willpower as a person because you're sitting there going, Okay, I want to learn this, I want to be expanding my knowledge, I want to be listening to things and like educating myself and all the rest of it, moving forward with life and you know, improving myself and my horse, my animals. That's a willful person. So, us as a species, and most species are willful. So when it comes to habit formation, just backbench it. Just that's got nothing to do with it. You already have all the skills you need. So maybe we can say um that willpower does exist in ourselves as an emotion, as a feeling, but has no real influence on the success of our habits. Yeah, that's more succinctly. Because in my in my brain, I always just think just bench it, just kick it out, forget it even exists. Ah, Barbara, that's adult behaviour. Don't think about it. What she's saying, she's a hypocrite guy, she doesn't think about her, she can't even play by her own rules. But no, I think that leads really nicely into well, we're gonna jump around a bit now because I think that talks really nicely to another paper that we were gonna mention a little bit later, but it talks about the fact that habit formation involves both internal and external factors so that so you can be you can feel motivated and you can remember what it is you need to do. Um, so you've got your training plan, you're all set up, you know what you need to do, but there's external factors at play, so the environment, social context. Um, on the day of this recording, it's a very hot day, um, and I'll be seeing clients later on this afternoon to the evening, and the environmental factors being the heat and the flies will influence the effectiveness of what we choose, we achieve in our sessions, and we might even have to completely change what we're doing. And like we've just alluded to, that's got nothing to do with willpower. We've got all the willpower to continue with our training plan, we're shaping, we're gonna keep going. But if the horse can't focus because it's getting eaten alive by flies, or we can't focus because we're dehydrated, you know, it's got nothing to do with our willpower, that's an environmental factor. And also on top of that, you have associative learning happening. So making the decision to go, and again, this is where we're like, I have to do it because I said I was gonna train today. This Wednesday is training day with Jen. It's Wednesday, by the way, guys, so just you know, just a little bit of insight into when we record. Um, like, you know, today is training day with Jen. I have to do it because I said I was, and I'm on this time limit, and I said I would do it, and if I don't do it today, then I failed in some way of achieving my habit. And then what happens is it ends up being really warm, you're biting flies, you're thirsty, and then you start getting associative learning with those environmental pressures where you associate the training with the not so fun things that are happening to your body because of the heat and the flies and everything else, and then you start creating negative associations with what you're trying to create, a positive new habit, you know. So this is again, and this is where I want again hone in on the the moral failing, um, because we sort of give these attitudes, you know, if we move stuff or we postpone it or we change the day or the time, people go, Oh, I'm so flaky. Yeah, you know, I'm a real flaky person. And it's like, well, no, you're not change the day and the time if there's a load of blight biting flies and it's 28 to 30 degrees, and you're not going to set yourself up for success to achieve that habit. That's not being flaky, yeah. You know, that is planning effectively and setting you and your horse up for success. Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Um, and you've just reminded me of things that have happened with clients, you know, go over the last couple of years, and I've definitely had these conversations, particularly with um, you know, getting young horses ready for saddle, um, of you know, and that for me personally, that age range goes from anywhere from two to five. I would not be riding a two year old, but the process of putting things on their back, you can absolutely get them used to having a numna on their back or let them see what a saddle is at two year old. Just disclaimer when I'm talking about this, I am not talking about backing and braking two year olds. Right. But I will much rather when it gets to leaning over and having a bit of weight bearing, we do that on maybe you know a settled, maybe a warm day or warm morning, not too hot but warm, where they're feeling a little bit sleepy and a little bit like oh just sunbathing. A sunbathing day is a great day before the flies come out for that kind of behaviour when you want them just to feel comfortable and calm and standing still. And there's definitely times that I've cancelled sessions or said let's move the session because the next stage in our shaping plan is to put something on their back or to lean over them and it's raining or it's windy, and last thing we want is them, like Barbara's just said, to associate something going on their back with the wind and the rain and all those adverse um conditions, and them associating, oh, when somebody stands on that mounting block and leans over me, my first memory was actually a really not pleasant one. Even if the human didn't mess up, it could be that the weather was just awful, and that's what the horse remembered. And then that's really tricky to re-retrain, relearn new habits. It's hard, much easier to get it right the first time. Yeah, I think it's really important what you said there just to reiterate that point. There's a difference between when we say starting a horse, we're talking about from behavioural training and habituation rather than exercising fitness and performance. Those two are different, but I know they can kind of get muddled because we often talk about training, and when me and Jen talk about it, we're talking about skill acquisition and learning patterns, and when trainers and performance riders or inventors are talking about it, they're talking about going like, okay, I'm up to five minutes of counter work, two minutes of gallop work up a hill, they're talking about something that's very different from us. Yeah, so we look at it from the perspective of going, like, okay, I have this two-year-old, I know it takes you know, two-year-old horse, I know it takes 18 to 250 days thereabouts for for skill acquisition for humans. So while we don't have a huge amount, we have some data on horses, we have more information human behavioral science. Um, obviously it's growing with horses. So let's just assume that over the next year from two to three, we want to set this horse up for the best success possible before anything else happens with them. There's so much we can do before that to establish really solid habits. You can take a two-year-old horse, walk them to the mounting block, and stand there and go, brilliant, great. Now I'm gonna just scratch and groom you beside the mounting block. When we stand beside the mounting block, we get nice cuddles. That's training a two-year-old ready to be in the saddle and starting the backing process. And you could just do that a couple of days a week, and you're starting to form solid habits. Instead of asking them to do everything all at once, you can start to drip feed lots of those things in. So that's what we're kind of talking about, and we're layering in as Jen says, like setting them up for success. Then their first experience for a horse is so critical. We're gonna talk about that compared to humans. So we've talked about human science, and now I think it's probably a good segue, Jen, to talk about well, how does a horse first experience thing and a habit and their learning? Yeah, especially when we're you know when we're talking about young horses, it we it's you don't always know how long it'll take them to learn something. Um, and there's one thing that quite a few of my clients will probably hear me saying is let's make this as boring and mundane as possible. So the longer you can have girths and saddles and numnas on the horse and around make that law as long as possible before you even think about lying on them or sitting on them, so they don't make that connection too early that saddle means I'm being sat on. Saddles, and in case that's a bit scary, make the saddle so mundane as bog standard and normal as a head collar, and that's why we talk about starting them earlier. It's because we're training the brain and trying to build in those associations that all of this tack is completely normal, completely boring, and it's not necessarily connected to anything exciting later on. That way, when you do get to leaning on, sitting on, whether you want to wait till that horse is maybe four, five, six years old, it's had years of experience that saddles are just boring, they don't mean anything, and they're not scary and they're not worrying. I think that leads us really nicely from human into horse. So, on with the next section. So, yeah, we were just talking about young horses and starting them off, and the reason we wanted to talk about that to begin with when it comes to you know habit formation and forming habits, and when it comes to learning, is horses learn quite differently than we do because they're a prey animal, and we kind of dip back and forth between kind of the differences between humans and even dogs as well, and horses because it kind of gives us a fuller picture. So a horse's first experience with something is really, really important, but because they're a prey animal, they file, or what I call bank into the servers, a lot of their information to their hindbrain. And that information that's stored there is their go-to. They experience a lot of what we refer to as one trial learning, so their first experience of something and they learn it once, that thing sticks around in the hind brain, and it's their go-to whenever the they're in that environment, whenever they see those other stimulus, so like I say the mountain black or the saddle, that's their go-to, and this makes sense because they're a prey animal, so they don't form habits the same way as we do because they're gonna learn it once. Because if they don't learn it and hang about to find out and think about it, then the chances are that is an opportunity. Jen's just done a little line across the neck. Yeah, I feel like it was a threat there. No, I was just acting out what you were saying. If you don't learn it, you die. That's the life of a prey animal. Proper like sleeping with the fishes there, she did it with me. But yeah, that's exactly it. So, whereas for us, we we we are we we do a lot of trial and error learning. You see that with kids, like you ever watch like a three or four or five year old, you know, they're playing with jigsaws or Legos. That's why we do Lego with kids, that's why we do play-doh, because you know, they are we're tool-making species, we like we use things in our hands a lot, we create things, we learn and develop through that, whereas it's not the same as horses. Did you have a yeah? If we take that back to our Nithandrel uh um what do you call it example we had at the start, if that Nithandrel throws a spear and misses the deer, you know, okay, goes hungry, but he will try again and learn from that experience. If a horse is out there grazing and a tiger or a saber-toothed tiger or whatever animal jumps out of the bush and bites them or scratches them, but the horse gets away, that horse isn't going to go, Oh, I wonder if I could stick around a little bit longer next time. That horse is gonna go, Oh god, I heard that bush and then that happened. I'm going to react even quicker because I knew they died. Yeah, they're not even gonna think about it. There's gonna be no logical thinking or processing straight away. That connection between that rustle or movement of that hedge and that near-death experience is connected, boom, right there and then. It's it's very, very different. So the way I often explain it to my clients is you know, hopefully, as they if you're listening to this, you drive a car and you're familiar with traffic lights, or you've been a passenger, so you understand how they work. So you're coming to a junction and the traffic light goes uh yellow, which in this country means I'm about to go red. Um, and in the UK it also can go the opposite way. We have sl we're right beside each other, but there's a slight difference in traffic lights. Um, in Ireland we go from red straight to green, so it's like stop, and then it's just like go. Um, whereas in the UK they go orange and then green, so it's a bit more leisurely. I don't know why it's so fast here. Um, but yeah, so you're approaching the junction, it goes amber, and you will think, you will reflect in that moment as a human being and going, hmm, there's no other cars coming. Last time I was able to make this light. If I drive a bit faster now, I might make it. Maybe I'll do that. So there's a process happening there where you're thinking and reflecting, and you'll build habits, right? If you are someone who's driving to that junction and you've had a car accident, you're gonna reflect on that and go, I'm not gonna chance it. If you've never had any incidents, you're probably gonna speed up and you're gonna go faster. So you're learning and you're reflecting on that moment. Horses instead will learn from that one thing, they won't have that reflection piece if they were driving a car. So they imagine a car horse driving a car, but they will effectively see that little and Jen's mind again. Thank you, Jen. Um, where's the hooves on the steering wheel? You know, so they see effectively an amber light, they don't go, hmm, what happened last time? They will just react to whatever is banked to the service, whatever's in the hind brain, they will just do it. So their habits are so immediate, they're so like they, you know, so it also means that behavioral modification for horses can take a lot of time, and it also means that they can have spontaneous recovery. So hopefully that analogy tracks. Jen will tell me if I've gone off the rails. No, it makes sense. You know, what we're saying is that for horses, they can learn something whether we want it or not to happen, so they can learn something in our mind as negative or positive very, very quickly, depending on how the consequences were for the horse. And depending on the severity of those consequences and that threat to life that that horse felt can have an influence on how long it will then take to modify that behavior. And this taps back into our habit formation that I don't have the numbers in front of. Oh, there we go. 18 to 254 days. That's a human research paper, but it can take anywhere between a couple weeks to a year to change behaviors in horses. We know this, and you know, Barbara and I are both big advocates of the fact that quick fixes just do not work. What you'll see in some of these videos online is that oh my god, the horse is behaving amazing. Okay, is that horse is behaving on that day? Behavior modification has not occurred. All you're seeing is that behavior in that one moment, and that horse has gone through a long period of trial and error, possibly experienced a variety of negative reinforcement, maybe some positive reinforcement, negative punishment, positive punishment, and has just figured out how to best behave in that situation on that day to make life easier for themselves. It does not guarantee future behaviour change. Behavior modification takes time, and something you'll probably hear Barbara and I say a lot, and it's a phrase I learned from Barbara, so credit to Barbara. What gets repeated gets reinforced, and we know this from a lot of researchers. So Laliatal in 2010, Laliotal in 2011, Gardner and Rebar, and in I think it's Rebar or Rebar in 2019, they have all done studies that have shown that with repetition behaviours become easier to do, and you have to think less about them. So it's the fact that you do it, the more you do a behavior, the less you have to think about it and it becomes subconscious. And that we can assume that happens for our horses as well, because sometimes they might do something and we go, Oh my god, where did that come from? But it's just been an automatic response because they've done it so many times in the past, even if it didn't make sense to us in that moment, it made sense at some other time in their lives, and it's been repeated enough that they just do it without necessarily thinking. Yeah, horses have a lovely habit of doing spontaneous recovery, um, which is when you think you have modified a behaviour and then it appears to have just come out of the blue again, even though it's a behaviour that they have probably performed at some point in the past because it just so stays so ingrained in their hindbrain. Um I just wanted to go back to something that you said there, Jen, because I just think it's worth talking about when we look at, you know, we call them quick fixes, um, which sounds like almost like a dirty word, but I love a quick fix. Everybody wants a quick we all want a quick fix. I I want quick food, you know. I'm gonna talk about my air fryer again. It's amazing, like quick things, fantastic, of course we want quick things. Do you know? And we're we're the jet we're the generation of you know smartphones and like I do remember dial up, do you know, wife? I mean, like we love quick things, of course we do. It's not a failing to want something quick and speedy, absolutely not. That's why all these things work. That's why marketers and people who are selling, you know, like as a beach body in 30 days, like, you know, even though we've shown that the research says 18 to 254 days, but if somebody said beach body in 254 days, you'd be like, nope. This guy's saying I can do I can do it in 30, so why would I pick the 250? So there's like the psychology and the science is missing. So when we look at things with our horses, we're sitting there going, the summer's coming up, you know. I want to get onto a trailer, I want to go to shows, and me and Jen are sitting there going, like, okay, so over the next 12 weeks we're gonna work on this training plan, and someone will balk a little bit, you know, and go 12 weeks, like, and you're like, but that is you know, this is we're setting you up for a lifetime. Now, 12 weeks is just an average that I try and help people understand that we're taking and building these things over time, but they're like, But Johnny the jockey down the road says you can load them in an hour, yeah, you know, and it's like okay, so that's one repetition, but where's the consistency and the habit formation over time? So while I you know I don't want people to feel like quick fixes is a dirty word because it's not, it's totally normal. Everybody wants to be able to get on and get with things, we want things to happen fast. The difference is it's a false economy, it's not really that fast. When I'm I know I'm saying Johnny the Jockey, I feel bad, but it was just something that pulled out of my head. But we are like a bit of alliteration, you know. You know, the person who's going, I'll I'll load your horse in an hour, and they'll uh we'll have it fixed in in a second, or you can buy this special trailer loading device that looks like Wallace and Gromit, you know, invented it, like something along those. I'm thinking of one of those like trousers. Do you know the trousers Wallace and Gromit wears? You know, and then they do the mechanical ones, put the horse in that, and then you'd have a imagine. Jen's like not impressed with me whatsoever. I've just got this image now of you in like two sets of trousers and a horse and getting it to robotically walk the horse up the ramp. I know that's where your brain is. You know, I know that's where my brain is. Um she knows me too well. So, you know, you have these, you know, gadgets and quick because it's something that we want to do. Absolutely. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, a quick fix is not a moral failing, but it's a false economy. Because what happens in there, as we know, we've talked about the associative learning, we've talked about that warm day, the biting flies, and it associating then the learned behavior with something that is happening that may not be ideal. So if it's not done carefully on that day, the horse may go into the trailer, but may create more negative associative learning and make it even harder to do the behavioral modification and set you back. So instead of 12 weeks, it's six months. Yeah. Does that make sense? So, like, it's it's it is a false economy. We see that with like you know, 30-day diets as well, like where yes, you might lose a significant amount of weight within those 30 days, but the body's reaction to that when you finish the diet is you end up getting more weight or it takes you longer or you plateau. So it's one of those things where it's like, you know, it's finding that balance between what's realistic and what's quick. So if you're to take away anything for this, it's remember those 18 days to 250. Do you know? So from one month to the end of the year. And if your expectations of achieving a habit or a goal, whether it's for yourself or your goals, needs to meet that expectation. You start to see changes within the first 18 days, the first month, and by the end of the year, you're you're flying. Yeah. I think that's a realistic time frame. Absolutely, and I'd completely agree with that. I think this um example of trailer loading is a great one to remember that you know, even if the environmental factors are all good and it's not uh, you know, a hot overly hot or even windy and wet day, we always have to also take in consideration the intrinsic factors. So emotionally, what's the horse feeling? Are they loading onto that horse box with confidence and clarity in what they're being asked, or are they rushing in there and being compliant? And as we know from previous research, compliant horse isn't always calm. You know, a horse can be compliant, but their heart rate and their heart rate variability is all over the place, they're actually very stressed. So, although it might look good, it doesn't always feel good to the horse. To caveat that, can it be done? And the horse has a great time? Yeah, you you there there are great trainers out there which will work really quickly, really effectively, and it might just be on that day that the environment the environmental factors were all good, the intrinsic factors were good, maybe you're on the horse yard and all its friends are around, and it's all people that the horse knows, and the techniques being used fit that horse's understanding. But the missing piece there is, even though that's a much nicer situation for the horse, and the horse loads quickly and everyone feels lovely, it's the generalization, and this is where I find quick fixes, even if it is actually a you know inverted commas, a good quick fix, it's missing the generalization. So we need to then go into different horse boxes, different locations, different times of day, different weather. Um, it's little things like especially when you get your three and a half ton to four and a half tonne boxes, some of them are forward facing, some of them are backward facing. Has your horse ever actually gone into a massive seven and a half ton horse box and stood side on? It visually it's all very different. It's going to the show, it's coming away from the show. Exactly. All these little things are elements, so that's that is your generalization, ticking all the different variabilities, the variables that could be connected to loading, your quick fix will not achieve that. But again, this podcast isn't about making anyone feel bad. Have we has any of us ever been in a situation where you've been in a oh shit situation and your horse won't load, and you are so grateful to that loading person who will just get the job done? Of course you are. Oh yeah. Of course you are. But again, that is yeah, and the thing is that's that's not what we're talking about habits. That's just get that's one action, right? Yes. But if we want to change habits and behavioural modification, then that's a different one. And I just wanted to say I think this fits in perfectly with one of our bonus episodes where we talk about positive punishment. That'll be coming later, and there's a real big differentiation between training and management, emergency management. And if you need to do things in an emergency management moment, that was a big mouthful. It's okay. It doesn't make you a bad person, it doesn't make you a bad horse owner. Sometimes we have to put on more pressure and do things we wouldn't normally want to because we have to make safe. We need to make you safe, the horse safe, we need to just get out or get done. That is not training. Training is your 18 to what's the number, Barbara? 254 days. 254. We've said it so many times in this hashtag 18 to 254 if you're listening. There you go. Um but that that's your difference. I you know, and I just want to obviously just to highlight our own biases here, because I think it's important. Obviously, both myself and Jen are behaviourists, like we behavioural therapy and behavioural modification is something that we've dedicated our lives to, and it's something that we really enjoy, otherwise we wouldn't be doing it. Um so just before I say this next bit, uh that I just wanted to make sure that I'd highlighted my own bias there. But when we talked about willpower earlier, you know, and I say a willing creature, you know, are they willing to do it? Is where willpower comes from. Um, and we look at horses, we need to ask, are they willing to do it? Do they you know, because do they have willpower to go, okay, I'm gonna learn how to load on this trailer trailers, but you know, it's it it, you know, again suddenly it doesn't make any sense anymore. But are they willing to do it? Yeah, then you start to go, okay, well, what does that mean? And you know, in relation to our horses, now we've seen this, and there are research on this, which is why I wanted to bring it up, and why I have caveat at my own bias here, because the research that Done every single time we look at it and we study with humans, we compare the effect of behavioral therapy and behavioral modification against an individual's idea because everybody has different beliefs and understanding of willpower in will of willpower because it's not quantifiable, we can't measure it in science in quotations. Behavioral therapy and behavioral modification outperform this idea of willpower and determination every single time. And and we've seen this in human studies, in managing things like obesity and weight loss management, you know, those who are trying to just rely on motivation and willpower in quotations alone. It just doesn't work the same way that behavioral therapy and behavioral modification work because we're applying a totally different set of, I'd say, again, my own bias, robust and scientific data. So, you know, I just heavily caveating that. So that is just really, really important to understand. And everybody has different ideas of what you know, self-control, willpower, and goal striving is. That's a human thing. When it comes to our horses, they don't necessarily have those same goals, you know. Their goals as a horse are going to be really, really different. So that's why just determination alone to get it done means that we can almost set ourselves up for failure before we've even started because we're not looking at it from how the horse learns and what the horse's goals and motivations are. Absolutely, and I just very quickly just pulled up there a couple of papers Barbara just reminded me about. We have looked at optimism in horses and their optimism in interactions with people. So there is a two papers in particular, and I apologise, I'm going to butcher these pronunciations. So Fremond et al in 2014 and Lokener et al. 2016. Anyway, these two papers look about look at the fact that horses trained at positive reinforcement with relief of negative conditions. So that is they were basically trying to meet behavioural needs of horses, social, you know, forged friends and freedom may foster more optimism in training. So they saw that there was an increase in the horses' willingness, if we want to use that word, or them offering behaviours and becoming more interacting with the tasks at hand when using positive reinforcement in comparison with uh negative reinforcement. And then the other paper looked at that when horses were transitioned from houses in individual boxes to pasturing, so at field with other horses, showed a significant increase in what they called optimistic cognitive bias. So the horses then had what they called a more optimistic outlook on training and interacting with humans and what we wanted to do with them because their social and other behavioural needs were being more closely met just by allowing them to have that herd dynamic and being at grasp rather than being stabled individually. So by enhancing their behavioural needs, you know, behind the scenes, it actually improved their way of interacting and training success with humans. And that makes so much sense, right? So, how much easier is it for you as a human to form a habit when your needs are met? Try and go for a run when you're hangry and tired. Yeah, you know. Yeah. Do you know it was actually just tracks? No, no, no, go ahead. No, I was gonna- I think it was Lucinda Green did an article, or it might be Mary King. I think it was Lucinda Green did an article with uh the horse and hound. This is quite a few years ago because I can remember reading it. Um maybe it wasn't at university. Anyway, horse and hound, definitely horse and hound. I read it in. And one of her pieces of advice was if you're hungry and tired, don't ride. You know, she would she would the whole article was about you know making it through winter, you know, if you're working on yards but you're producing your own horses as well, how to you know look after yourself and your horse through the winter. And one of the advice was if you haven't slept, if you haven't eaten, don't go and see your horse. Well, you might need to go and see your horse and look after it, but don't ride it, don't work it, don't go to your horse to do something with it if you haven't looked after yourself. Even if that means okay, you're gonna have a bit of a later night because you took half an hour to sit down, have a cup of tea, have a sandwich, a bit of toast, a biscuit, whatever, do that, then go to the horse. It's the whole putting your air mask, oxygen mask on first before those around you. If you're not looking after yourself, you can't help others. And the same goes to the horses. I mean, the horses aren't the horse didn't make the decision to go live in the pasture with con specifics and show significant increases and optimistic behaviours. Of course the horse didn't. We did that for them, but we can help support the horse in achieving more fulfilment. Yeah, no, I exactly, that's it. Like, no, I completely agree with you, and like it's funny because when it comes to like that article, it it comes to something that we talked right at the start about where it's like this idea of taking a break or not pushing on that day is seen as a moral failing in some way, instead of actually the best way to set everybody up for success. So I think I think that sums up that we've we've dived into that quite a lot, and there's still some more that we want to do. So on to our next section, which is you can teach an old dog new tricks. So yeah, I think there's just that myth is just busted. I just said it. There we go, that's it. You can do it. Um it's it's honestly older animals and humans, it's just it's well refuted for the better part of a decade, two decades now, that they can't learn something new, you know, that age impacts the fact that you can can't learn things. If anything, you learn to learn, right? So if if you if you are actively engaging your brain and you learn throughout your life, you are going to be able to easily learn and develop your brain and still learn things in in later life. And the same with your dogs and horses. So once you're actively engaging your brain, those neurons and everything are still firing, they're still working, of course they are. Like you're still that's how we're wired. But there's this concept that older animals and humans can't learn new behaviors, and it's just completely refuted with all of the science. Um I don't know if I want to list the behaviors. Um and I find this really fascinating, and I think we forget that learning is actually a habit. You know, actively learning and learning new things is actually a habit in itself, and if you haven't done that through your lifetime, picking it up later is going to be more challenging, but it doesn't make it impossible. It just means the starting blocks are a bit tricky, but as we know from the research, the more a habit is repeated and practiced, the easier it gets. Absolutely, and the theory of being an old dog new tricks, you know, that expression actually comes from something that we talked about in the the last section about horses and that one trial learning those first experiences. And there's critical moments in a dog's life of socialization. There's the same with like you know, horses, they have certain areas of their life where they still mimic and they work with their dams and their foes afoot, and I say dogs when they're puppies and they're around different members of their family groups, and the same for us as well. What it means by that expression is the life stages and learning within those life stages, but doesn't have anything to do with actually habit forming and learning new behaviours. So we can ditch that one. If you've got an older horse or you've got an older dog, we can absolutely, you know, support teaching them something new. So, how do we start to form behaviors more effectively? Well, one of my pieces of advice, just personally, would actually be, and this is not a paid ad, it's just because I found it a very useful book, is go and check out books like the James Clear Atomic Habits because information like that, which is accessible and really easy to follow, actually just follow them. You can sign up to emails, Facebook, and all this jazz. It's really simple advice, and some of the advice given is you know, tracking. If we don't track our behaviors, especially when you're forming a new behavior, it's sorry, forming a new habit, it's actually harder to achieve. But if you have uh a tracker, so just think of it as a calendar and you can tick all the days that you've managed to do that behaviour or that training session. So even if you get to the end of the week and you manage to do your behaviour every day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you went out with your friends or you see family on the weekend, you wake up on Monday morning and you go, Oh, I didn't do anything over the weekend, my horse isn't going to remember, I haven't done anything. You look back at your tracker and go, actually, I did five out of seven. Five out of seven days, that was a really good week, you know. Or your week might look different. You might have a really bad Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and you think, Oh god, that's it, I've ruined it. But then actually, you've still got Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday to go. You know, you've still got four out of seven opportunities to form that behaviour. And with tracking documents, you know, you can get you get free downloads, you can get apps, it's just a really nice, easy, accessible way of tracking that behaviour and just tracking your own progress. Personally, I find it really motivating to go back and look at you know, say there's a whole week and a month I didn't do anything with my horse for whatever reasons, but I can see that I did three weeks or two and a half weeks and go, Do you know what? It was still a good month. That was just a really tough week, and I've got you know 14 to 21 uh practices in that month, those seven days they don't matter. Yeah, there's a again not a paid ad because I feel like I'm gonna do it. I I use an app that's available on it's free, it's on Android and and Apple, and it's called Loop Habit Tracker. It's really simple, there's no bells and whistles to it. It you can edit what you like for it, and it's basically just tracking certain things to be able to do it. So, you know, I have sort of just like I have goals for the week. So this is one I'd set for you too, as well. Saying I'm going to do this every day, you're just setting yourself up for failure, you know, like you really are. Set it of a weekly goal or a monthly goal, because that way if you fall behind or move ahead, it's you you've got wiggle room and you've got areas for adaptability. So I try and do a certain amount of mileage every month, and now I have a year-long goal, um, which I think is 1,200 and something kilometers, believe it or not. Last year I did 8, 800, so I upped it. Um and just I think Barb, you're talking about running and walking mileage, not car mileage. I am talking about walking and running, yeah. Just uh I mean the car is even worse. Me and me and Jen probably blow that out of the water in like a month because of the amount of driving we do, knock over the environment. Um, but I have a yearly one, right? At the moment I'm behind. Like at the moment I'm behind on that goal, but it doesn't panic me or worry me because I'm like, okay, I'm 12% behind because I had a month there where I wasn't doing a huge amount. I had to take a bit of a break. That's fine. You know, I'll catch back up again. You know, and it's already starting to tick back up because I have a bit more time, and you know, things have sort of changed. That's so again, you're giving yourself that flexibility within that goal. So I find the loop habit tracker very good because what I do is I go, okay, well, I want to achieve this in the week. So that's seven days, and then I knock off one day and say, right, give myself six days, and then I divide it for the whole week. So you're giving yourself that buffer. So you're not beating yourself over the the head when you don't achieve an unrealistic goal of going, I'm gonna do this every day. So yeah, this is it. Like track if we track it, then we know what's happening, and it also gives us motivation to keep going and achieving our goals because we know that we can do it, and if you fall behind, that's fine. That's that's that's part of the plan. It doesn't negate everything else that you've done. So the the with the loop habit tracker, because I I like it quite a lot because what it will do is it'll show you just a general trend, so it'll show you how well you're achieving the goal. So, for example, I'm gonna open up here. There was three days last week where I didn't do my run in the morning, and I was probably working, but it still says I'm on target by 78% this week. So really good. We're singing, we're singing, like again, we're looking at the positives, right? We're not sitting there going, Oh, bad barber, bad barber, not not walking three days last week, oh you know, like it's not focusing on that, it's going, Great, you're hitting, you're hitting in the 70s. I'm like, that's fantastic. Yeah, that's great. You know, we we'd be singing and dancing if we were scientists getting that kind of you know, um uh percentages back. Absolutely so it's it it does it does help kind of keep that focus, is it's so important to track, even if you don't want to use a tracker like that, maybe use a journal and just write yourself, you know, little stories. In our previous episode, we just spoke about you know self-talk and how we talk about to ourselves. So writing a little note on your phone or a journal, or even just as you're driving home, just have that little self-talk of I'm really proud of myself, I just did that, I didn't think I would, or I'm gonna give myself permission to have that day off because, and identifying the because I think is really important. So identifying the barriers that are in place that are stopping you from forming that habit are really important. So is it you know, lack of time, is it stress, is it feelings of failure, is it confidence, is it feeling alone? Is it and by identifying what those challenges are, you know, it gives you an opportunity to go. Do you know what? Actually, is this a me issue, or do I need to seek support? Do I need to get somebody on board with me to make this habit formation more likely? And you know, this is where me and Barbara come into it when we're helping our horses. So the role of a behaviourist, apart from understanding your horses' behaviour and addressing the you know environmental factors and the training factors, you know, Barbara and I are here to support you and finding a training program that actually fits your you know state of mind in that moment or your access to facilities or you know, the amount of time that you actually have, and that awareness and that ability to think of all the different factors is a big job. And as a horseholder myself, I know all too often I I have chats with Barbara, I have chats with my friend uh Katie from Informed Rider Coaching when it comes to like really technical riding things. I'm like, how do I I can't see the wood for the trees because I am the person in the situation, and it's not a failing to bring other professionals onto your team because it can make you far more likely to actually achieve those new habits. I just think it's really important. I know I've said it a few times in this to recognise the barriers to habit formation, and they aren't the barriers that you think they are, it's got nothing to do with with willpower. That's that's bench it. Um, and got everything to do with setting realistic timelines and setting yourself up for success, as Jen said, time, stress, barriers to being able to, you know, get in feeling like it's a moral failing if you don't do it today. That's it's just it's just a fallacy, and that everything stacks onto itself, um, and that there are no quick fixes as much and all. So we'd love to get a beach body in 30 days, it's chances are it's going to take 254 days, you know. So we need to make sure that we're we're being realistic about setting our goals. Um and as Jen said, it's like, you know, our own kind of our own plug here that is exactly what we're here to do, and it's exactly what we do do. Um, and as they I usually say to my clients, look, you know, budget for 12 weeks, let's be honest and transparent. This is what we're doing. And I find that people like having a time frame and when they understand, okay, yeah, three months or 12 weeks seems like a long time, but every single one of them has said to me, Oh my god, that flies. And it does. Yeah, it absolutely flies by, you know, and I've I've had you know dogs that are ten years old pulling on the lead for the ten years, and we've been able to train them to walk loosely on the lead. So again, we can teach any age of dogs, we don't need to just suffer in silence and go, This is my lot in life and reside ourselves to that. You know, we don't have to go, oh, I can always get my horse onto the box. I had a say client yesterday, which was exactly that. It's like he always goes onto the box and then we get out to a show and I can't get him back on. Yeah, you know, we don't have to keep battling on that way, you know. We get to a point where like we can change and create new habits, we can support our horses, our dogs, and ourselves. It's just about having the right structure in place. Yeah. And I just that one you've just said there about the horse. I've just had a client message me just at the start of this podcast. The exact same situation would load but not always come home. And they just went out last week for or maybe it was earlier this week, but what day? We were on Wednesday, so last weekend, they just went out for their first trial. So they went for a 10-minute box drive, went for a hack, but I told them make sure you park somewhere that you can ride home if you need to. It's always the best advice. Anyway, they didn't need to, they went for a lovely 45-minute hack, they loaded back on. The owner, my client has said that they didn't feel any nerves, it was really smooth and lovely. That has taken, I'm trying to think now. I'd have to check my notes when we first started, but we're on to seven, so we did a six-session package and we've done one more, we've done seven, and then there's a couple of weeks in between all those sessions, so yeah, that's easily been because they need time to practice. So that has easily been, you know, although it's been seven sessions, that has been maybe four or five months to get to that point. But by taking our time and doing it systematically and getting that generalization, they have now boxed up their horse on their own, gone out, had a lovely time, and boxed up with no stress and no hassle. It's worth it. It is worth it at the time. But it's it's installed then, you know, and it's funny because I think we're probably we're probably three months behind you. So literally, like we're at the point where I'm like in the box, stuck you know, in the box there, driving in a small circle, and then off. Yeah, that's where we're at at the moment. And people go, that seems mad, but I just want to get to the show, and it's like you know, I and I I will steal Jen's famous saying, which is like slow start, fast finish. Yeah, you know, absolutely. Um and it seems it seems mad, but long-term success, and you and you know, then you are getting out and you're going places and you're going for longer journeys, like the the beach for us is an hour and a half away, you know. Um like that's that's a long journey. And if you've been out on the beach and you want to go for a hack and go for a spin, and then having to try you can't hack back from that, you can't walk back from that. The horse needs to come back. So if you want to enjoy that and get out for the summers and enjoy those beach rides, putting the time in beforehand makes all the difference. But we digress, we digress. Um, Jen, are we on to questions and answers? Because we've had a few questions in since we started season two. Um we move on to the last segment and then say goodbye to everyone. We shall. So we had a good question come through here. So it was how can I establish a consistent training routine with my horse when my schedule is so unpredictable? Yeah, that is our I can I can I can uh affiliate with that one, especially when you're working self-employed, you're working or maybe you're on a shift pattern, you know, weekly routines can change. And I think our advice is just find those small pockets of time so it can feel like you can't do oh, I've only got 10-15 minutes when I get to the yard. Depending on what your setup is, if your horse is living out or they're in the stable, you know, there's actually still quite a lot you can achieve in 10-15 minutes. Even in those 10-15 minutes, you might just want to recover some old ground. So, say, because we've been talking about loading, one of the techniques that you know we both like to use is target training because you know the horse goes to the target and they can almost load themselves. There's more to it, but that's not what the podcast is about today. If I had a tricky loader and it's still the early stages, and I only had 10-15 minutes, I might just throw the cone around the stable for 10-15 minutes in a fun way and have fun with my horse, but still supporting that behaviour which is see cone, go to cone, get reward, and just um reinforcing, calling the reinforcements, I'm strengthening that bridge. And if you know that, uh what I'm saying there, it's because you've listened to one of our bonus episodes in positive reinforcement. So well done, you, Gold Star. But that's what it's about. It's about just reinforcing everything that we're trying to form because we know from the research the more repetitions you do of a particular habit or behavior, the easier it becomes to perform. Yeah, so the the other question we have here is how do I stay motivated to maintain positive habits for myself and my horse? So I love this question for lots of different reasons. Um I suppose the the first bit is like, you know, how do I stay motivated? And I think that's so interesting because you're all you're already kind of setting it up as in, you know, well I'm not currently motivated. I bet you the chances are whatever you want to be motivated to do, you don't want to really do. So there's the should and you know if I you know oh I should be doing that. You don't want to do it. Do you want to do it? So I I there's lots of things that I I love doing with my animals and I'm very motivated to do them. So I don't actually have to stay motivated because I enjoy doing them and they're fun. There's lots of things that I couldn't give a flying squirrel because I'm not air on um on doing like you know that so I just don't do it and I outsource that stuff you know I love I like I trim my own horse's feet. I don't need to stay motivated to do it. I enjoy doing it. I enjoy I love feet just cut that up Barbara's feet. I love I love it insight into Barbara there a little fetish. Very very specific very specifically horse feet you know that's such it's a biomechanics and horse movement and podiatry is a labour of mine. So I love it and I find it fascinating I don't need to stay motivated to read all those books. I don't need to stay motivated to do her feet you know I do however need to stay motivated to do things that I don't enjoy doing. So what I would say is if you find yourself going how do I need how can I keep my motivation up find a way to make either it fun or have a look and see if it even is fun. A lot of people say this when say you're on a yard where there's a lot of show jumping. It's a show jumping yard and a lot of people seem to be jumping because a lot of the livery yards have different kinds of ideas you know ones that are very dressage focused ones that are hunting cross country jumping so on so forth they tend to be different disciplines. That's the yard that you're on and you don't like jumping but you get caught up in the jumping that everybody else is doing and you want to stay motivated to train your horse to jump but all you want to do is go hacking what I would say is you'll find the motivation comes when you find something that you enjoy doing. If you want to go hacking then find a way to go hacking if that's what you enjoy doing then the motivation will come. Do you have anything to add to that Jen? I would I would just say well I agree with all of that and just have a little thought think to yourself you know does it actually need to be done? Because sometimes I think we we put we put pressure ourselves oh this is what I should be doing with my horse or I I should be lunging my horse no you don't you don't you don't have to you there's there's so many other ways that you can work with your horse like you don't actually I haven't lunged my horse in about two years exactly for a walk instead. Yeah because I I I and this is it because I I said again this is a diatribe but do apologise I've just cut you off Jen you know like yeah you don't have to lunge your horse the vet asked me the other day he's like what's she like on the lunge I'm like I have no idea lunch I I find it boring I find it really boring so I just don't do it. So instead I go out in a straight line I go for a walk I bring the dog with me and we all go off together. I can achieve the same exercise it's way more fun for me yeah so I don't have to lunch sorry you poked the hornets out I thought Barbara might appreciate that uh example but it's just a nice easy one you know there are things that we do with horses or we think we should be doing you don't have to there's not you know there's some things we do have to do like you know if there's a wound we need to clean it we need to care for your horse and maybe you need to do some consent based training with your horse those are things that we do need to do but things like the ways in which we ride and train our horses you've got to find what suits you best and just because it is common doesn't mean it's the best thing for you. So it's common practice to lunge doesn't mean that you and your horse have to lunge there's lots of other ways to achieve the same fitness goals or recreational goals. So my add on to that of that long-winded die tribe myself is just maybe if it's a difficult goal can you change the goal or change your route to the goal maybe the end goal is the same but the process you get there is different and then you enjoy it more and you're far more likely to get there. You hinted to a really nice bit of the language we talk about the words we use for ourselves in our previous uh podcast um but you kind of alluded to it there I need to clean my horse's wound do we ever need to stay motivated to make sure that they're you know like if they had an injury we wouldn't ever ask how we could stay motivated to to do that because we know it needs to get done. So if you find yourself saying like you know I need to do this I need to get it done today you're probably a lot more motivated than if you you say I should get it done. Yeah I shouldn't be doing this. That means there's some external pressure it's not something that you're actually doing you know so should is just a big stick that you use to beat yourself with that you should be doing something. Find the things you want to do and you need to do and you'll find all the success you'll possibly want. So Barbara just to finish ours off there for today's podcast what is your big takeaway from this topic oh yeah not a it's not a moral failing it's not a moral failing to you know miss a habit you know or take a little bit longer to achieve the habit or your goals you know or miss a day. It's not it's not it's perfectly human it's a perfectly normal thing to do. You're like everybody else in the world and it doesn't mean you can't still succeed you know um and once you once you have that little breakthrough it is one of the most empowering things you can do for yourself. Like it really really is because suddenly you just realize you can do whatever it is that you want to do and that you enjoy doing and you just find so much more success. Yeah it is really it's really empowering actually forming you b new behaviors new habits and going wow I did that I did that I made that happen it's and I guess that is my takeaway from it is to please do reflect on your progress because what feels like bad days what feels like regression is actually completely normal like we've said about that spontaneous recovery with horses with the hind the hind brain it is so normal and it's it should be expected that what it feels like taking a step back to happen you know for those old behaviors to come to the forefront expect them it's normal go oh great it happened we're making progress because it should happen they're horses not humans so my takeaway is expect them accept them but also reflect on the progress you've made because that's what's really important that one day or those couple of interactions which go oh my god we're back to day one you're not back to day one you're dealing with a horse you're not dealing with a human look at all the input that you've done so I say this a lot to clients if you're talking to a computer think about all the data input you've put in all those good repetitions three or four maybe not so great repetitions is not going to influence the overall trend it's still an upward trend and that's what's important so yeah remember guys it's all about building positive habits and habits take time 18 to 254 days and consistency but the rewards are absolutely worth the effort and if you need any personalized help or any tailored support you know where we are you can reach out to us anytime. Absolutely guys thank you so much for joining us today stay tuned for our next episode which will be a bonus episode so I hope you're keeping up to date with those but our there's a test so there is a test yeah there's a test at the end yeah there's definitely a test at the end and what our next episode until then happy training are we not gonna tell them oh we'll tell them what are we not gonna tell them what the next episode is I mean I don't know I don't even know are they allowed to know what the next episode are they are they allowed to know what the I'm keeping this in um I don't know what are they allowed to know what are what are we doing Barbara what are we doing uh shaping okay so our next our next bonus episode will be about shaping behaviors so hopefully you will listen to the other bonus episodes so we've covered negative and positive no it won't no it won't ignore her um it won't at all jen is not looking at the updated schedule that I put together meticulously uh so this is episode episode two episode two is this one and then the next bonus is positive reinforcement yes the next one that we will be recording is about shaping so there's a spoiler about I'm keeping all that in I'm keeping all that in just I just I just this this is an instant you just get a little window into me giving out to Jen for for not looking at the up to date schedule no I just I just I want it on the record I am looking at the up to date schedule but what I'm looking at is what we're recording next which is not correct what it's actually going to be what you guys will hear next is different. But I'm looking at the right one I won't I won't I won't have such slander the thing is because I'm editing this I get to keep it all in um so and I can edit out the bits and just cut Jen and all you can hear is just calling her out right on that note guys I think we will say goodbye and we will take the rest of this domestic offline so um have a fantastic week and we'll see you in the next one. Till next time guys thanks as always bye bye bye bye