Power in the Pain

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast. Hopefully the audio is decent because I'm actually in my truck um driving home from a barrel race and I figured I would just use the opportunity to jump on here and do a little chat so hopefully the sound quality is not too bad being in the truck. Um but yeah, so we are we're rolling home from uh a local barrel race that we just went to. If you're tuning in for the first time, I um train and compete with horses, doing barrel racing and um you know a lot of this podcast we kind of use them to generate examples to talk about. Uh the goal of this podcast is never to talk about horse training or horses, um, but rather kind of using those examples to to apply to just life in general. Um, you know, the goal of what we talk about here is is how to become the best versions of ourselves, how to how to use our minds, how to be aware of how our minds work, how to um, you know, and how to use them to to do the best we can do and and be the best version of of ourselves that we can be, and you know, accomplish all the things that you want out of life because life is really short and it's really fragile, and the opportunity to chase a dream is not always going to be there. So, you know this is my challenge to all of us is you know don't wait, like don't wait to do it, don't put it off, don't make excuses. You know, if you have something that you want to do, if you have something you want to live, you gotta go out there and go after it because there the reality is there's just not that much time for us to do all the things that are important to us. What I wanted to talk speak about a little bit today is um so first of all, ran my one horse, she did really, really good. Um really super happy with how she how she worked. Um, I'll talk about that a little more in a minute, but um, I was as I was getting ready to take her, so I had already tacked up and I was already in the saddle and I was walking, you know, my horse to the warm-up area, and I come up on a uh a girl who had just walked her horse back to her trailer because she you know she had just made her run and she was like walking back to the trailer and tying her horse up at the trailer, and I could tell that she looked like um she might have been crying, and I was kind of far away, but you know, I was like, Oh, she looks upset, and my plan was to to walk up closer and you know kind of just say, Hey, are you okay? And likely, most likely, she was really unhappy with how her run went. I mean, I've been the girl walking their horse back to the trailer and and having some tears in my eyes because like it's just so frustrating when you when you put so much work and energy and effort into something, then to not have it go well and to feel like you know you're failing and to feel like you're not you're not seeing the progress that you want to see, you know, it's it's just so it's such an emotional thing. Um and again, like this isn't just about horses, all of us can relate to this when there's something that you have put your your time, energy, soul, everything into, and then it's just not going the way you want it to go, it's it's very emotional. And I've been that girl at a barrel race who has come back to her trailer and been upset because you know, just the sheer frustration and and feeling like you're failing and not making the progress you want. And I'm sure that that's exactly what was going on with this person that I'm talking about. And so my goal was to just walk up to her and just like try to, you know, say, Hey, are you okay? And try to like give kind of an uplifting little comment, you know, like, hey, like, we've all been there, it's gonna get better, keep trying, you know, something like that. But as she saw me approaching, she kind of like went inside, ducked inside her trailer, probably because she wanted to be left alone, which is exactly how I feel when I'm feeling real emotional like that. Like, I kind of don't want anyone around me or to talk to me until I decompress. So I'm sure she kind of saw me take notice of her and kind of tried to avoid having an interaction, so kind of just jumped in her trailer to be left alone, which is totally understandable. But anyway, so I didn't I didn't get to talk to this person. Um, but like I said, my guess is she's probably been struggling with something related with her horse. You know, I don't know if it's health issues or just figuring each other out or whatever it is, but um I'm sure that the run didn't go like where she wanted it to go, and it's just it's very, very frustrating and emotional and disappointing, and you put all this energy into the into this thing, and you you try so hard, and when it just isn't clicking, it's just it's so tough. It's so tough to keep your chin up, it's so tough to keep a positive attitude, all the things. And I absolutely know what it feels like because I absolutely have gone through it. And you if you've listened to this channel before, you've heard me talk about this already. I I have been there, like I remember so vividly coming back to the trailer like after certain runs and just being so overwhelmed with like frustration and disappointment, and you know, I I would I've been there and I'll probably be there again. Like, I mean, look at my two horse. I have my I have two horses. I rode the one today, she did fantastic. The other one, we're still trying to figure out what the heck is going on with her. Um, as far as making her more comfortable with her feet and making her, you know, more sound. And that's it's like that's just a part of it. It's like you're I came into the I came into the season thinking that both horses were gonna be like up and running and really going hard all year, and I had such high hopes for that, and only to have only to have like you know the rug pulled out a little bit, and it's like oh, here's a little plot twist that you weren't expecting, and um, you know, it's it's disappointing. It's like and this this is what horses teach you so well is you better be able to ride the roller coaster because it's gonna be up, it's gonna be down, it's gonna be sideways, it's gonna be backwards. Like, you better be willing to go on the ride because if you think you're just gonna be in this perfect uphill trajectory and upward trend, and everything's gonna go according to plan, you are sadly, sadly going to be in for a whirlwind of of disappointment and surprises. And life is no different. You we have to be realistic and understand that we there's gonna be ups and downs. Like, don't the more you try to block it out, I think it hard it the harder it becomes to just roll with the things when they happen, um, and and figure out you know a way to keep moving forward without just getting completely derailed and and completely giving up on everything that you want. So, yeah, I've been there. I've definitely been there, definitely going back to the truck and trailer, definitely cried, definitely been frustrated, disappointed. There's one time I remember so vividly, I feel like it was yesterday, I really I just was like, I'm selling the horses, I'm getting out of this. Like, I I was done. Like, I just was so fed up with the with the repeated frustration and failure. I just I almost write that and there threw in the towel. Um, but I went home, I slept on it, and I said, you know what? No, like we gotta keep going. And look at where I am now. And that's what that's the message I want to just shout to everyone out there. Like, look at where I am now, and it's because I kept going through all the heartache, through all the tears, through all the frustration, through all the the disappointment, through all the agony, through all the all the uncertainty of whether it was gonna work out. And that's a big deal because if somebody so the that's a big part of the puzzle. Because if someone came to you tomorrow and they said, What do you want for your life? Like, name something that you wish was different in your life and you want to make better, or name some a dream that you want to chase or go after, like name something you want to do or have. And you told them, This is what I want. And they said to you, Okay, well, you can have it, but you're going to have to struggle, and it's gonna be uncomfortable, and there's gonna be some misery and frustration and all the bad things, you're gonna have to go through all those bad things for a period, a designated period of time. And they told you exactly how long that time was gonna was gonna be. But they said to you, like, hey, if you can go through all the stuff, if you can deal with it and go through it for this exact period of time, I promise you that you'll have what you want. That's a very, very different, the certainty of that, and being able to struggle through through a bad time in your life or a bad situation, knowing, knowing for certain that you know there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and you know exactly when that light at the at the end of the tunnel is gonna be, you know, dealing with that, dealing with that the bad stuff, that is, in those lands, that is a lot different because you know it's for a designated amount of time, and you know for certain that if you just push forward, at the end of that designated time, you're gonna have the life that you want. That's very different than the uncertainty and pushing through pushing through the fear, the frustration, the sacrifices, the hard work, the disappointment, the failures, pushing through all that stuff with no guarantee that you're gonna come out on the other side with the thing that you want. That's very different and obviously a lot more difficult. And that is usually most of the time, kind of the situation that we're in, because we usually don't have we don't have a crystal ball, and we usually don't have you know the promise of of the certainty, you know, to know that if we if we push through the bad and we keep trying, we know we're gonna get where we want. We usually don't have that certainty. Like usually we're kind of just going on, you know, a hope and a prayer and trusting that, you know, if we do the work and do it the right way, that we'll come out the other side where we need to be, but we have no guarantee of that. You know, uh most of the time we don't have a guarantee, and we certainly don't have the crystal ball to tell us where we finally break through to the other side. Like, when will it happen? Is it gonna take six months? Is it gonna take two years? Like, is it gonna take five years? Like, when's it when's the breakthrough actually gonna happen? And we usually don't have that information. So for me, looking back, because you know, talk and there's I there's other actually other examples in my life of this as well, you know, related to work and things like that. But I think the horses are the most concrete example, which is why I think it's a good one to talk about, and that's why I I'll stick with that one. But like, look at the horses for me, for example. I am on the other side, I came out on the other side, and like do are do I have everything perfectly figured out? No, like do it. Does my one horse still have some issues that we're working out? Yes, like we're not perfect, that's different, but we're I'm on the other side. Like, there was a period of time where I wanted to be able to do something, I wanted to be able to do this life so bad, and you know, I was putting every ounce of my energy and effort possible into trying to make it happen, you know. Like everything I I knew to do and I could do, I was doing to try to make this life, this thing, happen, and there was a long period of time where I just felt like I couldn't, like, no matter how much work and energy and effort that I did, I wasn't I wasn't attaining the thing that I was trying to get. Like we were still failing, we weren't progressing, like we were still slow. I mean, barrel racing is a timed event, you gotta be fast, and we were still slow. And I just in that period of time, I just felt like it was never going to come together, and I just felt like I was it kept getting harder and harder to wake up every day and still like go out there and put put the energy in, put the effort in, put the money in, put the time in. Like it just it kept getting harder because it was just becoming so frustrating and so disappointing that that the fruits of those labors weren't paying off, like we weren't making any progress, we weren't getting any better, and it was so painful, so painful, and I could have I could have stopped, I could have given up, and I didn't. I kept going. And I kept going, and eventually we broke through to the other side, and like now I'm at a place where it's like yeah, like we I mean again, like no, nothing's perfect, and of course, like we always want to be faster and we're always working to get better, you know. Of course, all of that goes without saying, but I'm on the other side, like I feel like I have accomplished what I needed to accomplish. I feel like we have achieved levels that we that I wanted to achieve. I feel like we've got to experience things that I wanted to experience, and I feel like I've proved to myself that like hey, you did it, like you figured it out, and now you're living the life that you wanted so bad to live. And I very much feel like I came out on the other side, like I pushed through and I'm on the other side now. So for me, looking back on my journey, my horse-related barrel racing journey, you know, I just I just feel so passionate to share that with everyone out there because whatever it is that you want or need for your life, like I just encourage you keep going because there's not you're not ever going to achieve anything extraordinary if you don't have if you don't push through the struggles, and if you don't push through the failures, and you don't push through the hard, the difficult. I did a podcast, I think, like one or two podcasts ago where we talked about there is no easy button. Like there's not an easy button. Like you have to you have to live it. You have to live the you have to live the difficult and you have to struggle through and you have to push through to get to the other side. And this is certainly not applicable to only barrel racing. This is not applicable to only like competing in sports and and things like that. This is about anything, anything that you want for your life, whether it be a dream that you that you want to chase, or you know, something something that you want to do, an ex-you know an experience that you want to do. Maybe it's just a different way that you want to live your life. Like maybe your life doesn't look like what you want it to look like, and there's certain things about it that you want to change, you want to make different, you want to make better. To get to the other side, you there's going to be difficultness. There's there's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard, and you're gonna have to push through those struggles. And the struggles can come in many shapes and sizes. I mean, it can be figuring out how to to perform a skill, like like doing the barrel racing with the horses, like it can be that. It can be you know having difficult conversations with with people in your life, like setting new boundaries with relationships, and that includes yourself. Like maybe you need to have some difficult conversations with yourself, and making tough you know, changes to your life, like changing habits is very hard, changing patterns is very hard. So again, it's not it's applicable across the board to any and everything. If there's something with your life, about your life that you that you want to be different, if you want to be different than what you currently have, or if there's an experience that you want to pursue, a dream that you want to chase, all of those things require some sort of action to be taken. Whether that be you know related to ourselves and the relationship that we have with ourselves, whether that be um the habits that we have, what we prioritize, you know, the things that we that we make non-negotiable as being important in our life, whether it be difficult, you know, conversations with with friends or family members, changing relationships we have, re-evaluating relationships we have, you know, being honest about what we need, what you know, what we want our life to look like. I mean, the list goes on. Like, money comes into it. Like, do you need to do something different with your money? Like, do you need to be doing something different with your career? Like, I mean, the list goes on. There's hundreds of elements that go into what shapes your life and and what allows you to live your life in the way that you've chosen, and to change any or any part of it, to change any of it, requires a little bit of difficulty, and it requires pushing through the difficult, pushing through the hard, pushing through the struggles, you know, pushing through the uncomfortableness. And if you can do that, then you can come out on the other side and you can look back and be like, Wow, I'm really glad I you know made those those changes in my life. I'm really glad I I pushed through the difficult and I made those changes in my life. So if you if If there's something you want for your life, if there's something you want to experience, if there's a dream you want to chase, if there's just a different way you want your life to look, or different way you want to live, don't shy away from the struggle because in the struggle is where you're going to find the new version of everything. Like in the failure is where you will learn all the lessons to eventually turn you into the next version of yourselves. And in the pain, like that's where that's where we define ourselves as far as how bad we really want it. Like in the difficult, in the hard, in the struggles, like how bad do you really want it? And that's a decision we all have to, that's a talk we all have to have with ourselves. But if you really want it, then you better be willing to go through the struggles, go through the pain, go through the hard, do the work, put in the effort, put in the energy, until you break through to the other side. And you better be willing to do it for as long as it takes because there's no guarantee on how long it's gonna take. The only guarantee is that there is no other way to achieve the next level of anything. There's no other way to achieve your next version of your life. There is no other way to achieve dreams and accomplishments and goals without pushing through some element of struggle. And then you know, kind of on the flip on the flip side of this, like never forget to look back at where you've been because and never never uh take for granted where you've made it to. Because I thought about that with my horse today with her run. She did so great. Um she placed fifth in the second division, which you know, if you don't know barrel racing stuff, that makes that basically just means um she was like in the half second off of the winning time group, uh, so to speak. But it but very, very good, solid run for her. And um, you know, just so proud of her. And there were some mistakes in the run. Like, I came out of the arena and I was like, oh, like I knew I was like, oh, we might have lost a little fraction of time here and there, and I just took a minute to reflect on that, and I was like, wow, you know, there was a time not that long ago where I felt like just being anywhere near the fourth division was just an impossible like I might as well be trying to like rocket myself to the moon, like that's how impossible it felt. And now, like now I'm living in a world where we make a run and I can pick apart like where it might not have been so perfect, but it was still good enough to land us in the second division. Like, I mean, we were 11th overall today out of everybody that ran. And when you when you look at it through that lens, you're like, wow, yeah, like I need to really, really keep it in perspective and really stay really grateful for for where where I am, and then also it should be an encouragement to you. Like, we should compare our accomplishments, you know, now to to what we did in the past. Like, we should compare it because it should be a a means of it of encouragement and a means to build confidence and self-assurance. It's like, yeah, you did that. Like you did that thing. The thing that you thought you would never ever be able to achieve. Guess what? You did it, you did it, and now you're on to even bigger and better things. So you're gonna do those too if you just keep at it, if you just keep it up. So never ever sell yourself short when it comes to the things you've already accomplished. Like, look back on those things and be proud of them and remind remind your brain, because our as we always talk about on here, our brains are really, really powerful, powerful things, and they'll they'll twist things around on us, and like we gotta keep we gotta keep our minds in check sometimes, and it'll forget. If if we allow ourselves, we will forget very quickly just how far we've come. And you know, we should all exercise, we should all do that exercise pretty frequently, or we look back on our life and we think about all the things that we used to want, all the things we used to pray for, all the all the things that we used to dream about, all the things that we felt like we would have given anything to be able to have, to experience, to do. Like, yeah, you better look back on your past self and remind your current, your present self how far you've come, and then use that to fuel your future self to keep keep having the energy and keep having the hunger and motivation to go out there and keep getting the keep chasing the dreams, keep doing the things you want, keep shaping your life the way you want to shape it. We should all we should all remind ourselves to do that and be and we should all be very proud of ourselves when we look back and and we know we've accomplished something big. Like we know we accomplished things that we used to only dream about, used to only pray about, you know, used to only wish about. If only I could have that, if only I could have that. And like look at us now, look at where we are now. Alright, I think that's all that I had to to chat about today. Um, hopefully that just inspires someone. This like I said, this is this is a real passionate topic for me because you know, I I just I know what it feels like. I know vividly what it feels like to want something and just think it's too hard, it's too difficult to try and fail, and to try and struggle, and to try and be disappointed. I know what it's like, and I'm telling you all that you gotta live it, you gotta live the emotions, you gotta feel them, you gotta go through it, but if you keep at it, like you can break through the other side, and you can have the life, the life that that you want, and the things that you want, and you can chase the dreams that you want. And like I said, starting out on this podcast, I mean, life is too short, guys. So don't kick the can down the road, don't make excuses, don't say, oh, I'll I'll do that next week, I'll do that next month, I'll do that next year. If you want it, if it's something you want, if it's if it's a life that you want, if it's a dream that you want, if it's a goal that you want, go after it now. Like start today. Because time is precious and you know opportunities come and go. So take advantage of everything and try to live everything to the to to your fullest while you have the capability. Because nothing nothing about tomorrow is promised us. So um, yeah. Alright. Hope everyone has a great rest of your day, and we'll talk again soon. Bye.