Climbing the Mountain

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Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. Hopefully the the sound quality is not too terrible. I'm in the truck driving home from a barrel race and thought about something to chat about and figured it would be a good time to whip out the phone and do it. If you've tuned in here before, you know that I don't um I don't pre-script these, I don't pre-think about really what I'm gonna talk about. I don't um I don't plot it out, I don't plan it out. When things are happening in my life um that I reflect on or that I kind of have an epiphany moment about or just something happens that you know is is just a catalyst for an example to talk about, um, that's when you know I do these podcasts and just very, very like real and honest and just like having a conversation in real time. So if sometimes they jump around a little bit, if sometimes you it could be articulated better, that's why, because it's very uh it's very just much you know off the cusp and um just like having a real conversation. Um so the the thing that kind of prompted me to to want to do a recording on the way home is I went to a barrel race today. I I've talked about I'm more horses on here a lot. If you follow this channel, you know probably a lot about them, but um went to the race today and my so my my one my older horse, the one I would consider my more seasoned horse, which in horse lingo, if you don't ride horses, it just means like the one that's been they've been around the block, you know, like they've been to a lot of shows, they've been to a lot of places. Um they don't really get rattled very easily, like they've they've been there, they've been there, done that kind of mentality. So um and she's very consistent, you know, she's seasoned, she's consistent, like she knows her job, she's honest, she's safe, you know, all I know you know exactly what you're getting when you get on her, and um she's she's been doing really, really well for for years now, you know, just consistently doing really really well. Um on the flip side, my younger horse, the one that has been having some struggles the last few years, she's just get getting back into competition. We're very much in the world of figuring it out again. I mean, this horse has been has been used to competition and has traveled a lot and has hauled a lot in the past, but we really did we because of everything going on, it really was a reset and and reinvent the wheel moment for her the past few years. So even though she has been out there and and seen the sights before, she's from from where she is right now, like none of that counts. Like it's like we're starting back from ground zero. So um this is really you know, from that lens, this is like her first season back at it, her first season back competing. Um, and I'm treating her like that. I'm treating her like a younger horse who's just going out there and we're just doing it for the first time together. So, all that to say, um, I have noticed that the past few races we've been to, my older, more seasoned, like hardcore, consistent horse has ran a little bit slower and a little bit sloppier than maybe than I would expect or that I'm used to for her. And it it's nothing prof it's nothing like really profound or really that noticeable. I mean she's still she's still kind of averaging like where she always averages, but it's just a hair slower and a hair just less less you know it's not as feeling as smooth and and predictable and as consistent as it has in the past. And this happened, I don't know, three or four races ago, and I was like, okay, well, you know, we we just had a little we just had a bad day or whatever. And then it happened like three races ago, and I and I was like, well, it's and because we were at a a farm fair event, so it the environment was really crazy, and the the way the arena was set up was really crazy and stuff like that. So I chalked it up to that. I was like, oh well, like it's just kind of a wacky setup, and and so that's why. And then the last race I took her to and the one today, it was kind of the same thing, not bad, it wasn't anything bad, but it was just like you're just not it's like you're a little a little off, a little slower than I would expect, a little, a little, we're just a little off. And um I got to thinking about that a little bit because I haven't changed anything, we're not doing anything different. So I did some did some reflection, did some soul searching on that, and I kind of feel like what is happening is I'm so I'm very I've become very hyper focused on bringing this younger horse, my other horse, you know, into herself this year. Like it's been all about building those building blocks, like and you know, getting us better, getting her better, getting, you know, climbing that mountain. So with my with that horse, everything is the mind the the mind space and the headset is very much we're on the mountain climb, like we're climbing the mountain, like we have to work, like we have all these things to work on. We gotta work on them, we gotta get better, we have an end goal, like we're going to world finals at the end of the year, so it's like we want to be running really good and consistent by then. It's like we have a mountain in front of us to climb, and that shapes a lot of how your mind works and a lot of the decisions you make and the choices you make and how you approach the things that you do. On the other hand, in my in my head, I have kind of chalked my older horse up to just being solid and consistent and giving me the same run every single time, no matter you know what I do. I don't need to do any. I mean, other than I mean, I need to keep her conditioned, I need to keep her in shape, of course, I need to keep her healthy, all that goes without saying, but other than just the basics of keeping her in shape and keeping her conditioned and healthy, in my mind, I think I've kind of choked it up to she's good. Like, I don't need to do anything, like she's she's like you pull her out of the trailer and send her, and she's gonna give you the same run every time, and it's gonna be good, and I gotta work on my riding, I gotta work on keeping her in shape, but other than that, like there's no there's no mountain to climb in my head. I mean, and of course, I'm talking to you now from the lens of reflecting on this a you know, and and thinking about this a lot. Obviously, I I didn't know, I mean, I wasn't intentionally looking at either horse this way. I wasn't intentionally approaching my day or approaching my decisions or anything I was doing cogniz, you know, consciously from that lens, but now that I'm reflecting on it and now that I'm kind of going over it in my head, you know, I think that's what has been happening the last month or two. I have very much, I very much feel like I have a mountain to climb with the one animal where I feel like with the older animal, it's like we're status quo. As long as we just keep doing what we're doing, all is gonna be the same, nothing's gonna change, we're gonna be good, we're gonna be status quo. And that's what I wanted to to chat about because that's a dangerous game to play. And I it I'm seeing it, I'm seeing it play out before my eyes, kind of with what is happening with my horses. Because the bottom line is first, so first of all, you can only you can only focus on one thing at a time. There's a there's a book, there's a book called The One Thing, that's the title of it, and if you haven't read it, I highly encourage it. It kind of well articulates this whole concept much better than I can, but essentially, multitasking is very much a myth. Like you cannot do multiple things all at the same time and do them all to the best of your ability. You just can't. It's not possible. And when we when we think about working towards things and improving things and bettering ourselves, it's easy to get caught in in trouble if we don't recognize that it's very hard for us to be hyper-focused on multiple things at a time. You know, if you if you're at a stage, if you're at a phase of your life where you're really struggling or focused or trying to work on one thing, it's just inevitable that that one thing is going to pull you away from something else. Like everything in your life is either pulling you towards something and pushing you away from something else. Like you cannot go in two directions at once. And I'm not saying you can't ride and train multiple horses at a time. I'm not getting, you know, it's not I'm not trying to be that detailed and prescriptive about this because I mean train trainers have you know multi- they have multiple horses that they train at the same time, and um people do multiple things with their life, like they're you know, they focus on having you know, working out, keeping the house clean, keeping the kids fed, like keeping your job. You have multiple tasks to do at your job. So I'm not saying that we don't multitask as humans, that's not what I'm saying, but it is a real thing that you can only give your attention to one thing at a time if you want to dedicate your full attention to it and deliver your your your best foot forward and the highest ability that you have. You can only do one thing at a time, and I feel like I might have kind of accidentally fell into this realm because if you listen to this podcast before, you know I'm not a professional horse trainer. I don't do this for a living, I have a bunch of other stuff on my plate in life. You know, I have like a full-time job, I have multiple part-time jobs, I have, you know, just the regular stuff that all of us deal with in life, and then the horses are my hobby. I mean, they're a very time-consuming hobby, but they're my hobby. So I don't have tons of time to be, you know, dedicating to just the horses, and that's part of the challenge, but in that, in that, with that perspective, I think what I have accidentally found myself falling into is I have made my younger horse that's the mountain I need to climb, and so in my head, it's become my one thing, like getting her where she needs to be this year has become the one thing, and it's become the mountain that is taking a lot of my attention and energy and focus, and the problem with like I said, I I think for my older horse, again, subconsciously, I wasn't thinking through any in any and all of this, um, you know, until I reflected on it today, but I think when my brain kind of put her in the bucket of she's good, we're status quo, just keep doing what we're doing, and things will be good. I think unfortunately what happens when you do that is then there's there's not a mountain to climb. There's no mountain in front of you, and all of a sudden, all of all of the stuff that your brain does without you even realizing it's doing it, you know, it shifts its focus, it shifts its attention away from that thing. Because the mind almost it's like it puts it on autopilot. And I know I know everyone out there has experienced autopilot. I know you know what I'm talking about. Like you'll be in the car driving, and you'll your mind will be wandering to something else, and next thing you know, you're like, Oh, I'm I'm already here, like I don't even remember driving here, and that's a scary, scary experience, but that's how powerful the mind is, like, it can do things on autopilot, and it can without us even real being aware of it, it will shift our focus, our attention, the the choices that we make will be determined by by where is focusing that attention, like it can shift all of that stuff without us even really consciously trying to do so. So I think when I was looking at my I when I put the horses in the different buckets, like one's the mountain that needs to be climbed, and then the other one's status quo, just keep doing what we're doing. I think I almost put that horse on autopilot. It's like my brain almost put her on, it's like okay, she's on autopilot, I don't need to be as attentive to this as I need to be to other things. And I think that's why we're we're just backsliding a hair. Um, because the problem when you if you're not pushing forward, if you're not per if you're not intentionally doing things to try to grow or improve or evolve, this is anything in life, not not just horses, anything. If you're not taking concrete steps to evolve into a better situation, then you're staying stagnant, and being stagnant means you start to go backwards because you're not keeping up with the rest of life, you're not evolving with the rest of life, and I think that that's kind of what happened in this situation. I feel like I kind of put I kind of put her on autopilot. I kind of just said, okay, status quo, and if we know anything about life, when you just accept status quo and you stop pushing, you stop driving forward, then you start to lose ground. And again, I I have it, it's not like I've been ignoring this animal, it's not like that's been happening at all. I mean, she's she's getting work, she's getting conditioned, she's getting taken care of. Like she's she's getting all the things that she needs, but I think what is what has happened is that subconscious part of my mind, you know, the part of that brain that we talk about on here all the time that controls all of our instincts and controls like all these things that our brain is doing in the background that we don't even know about. I think that part of my mind has logged her under kind of an autopilot situation. And so therefore, I you know, the the things I the little things I do, the little things I think about, the little things I focus on every day is not putting me on a path towards being intentional and attentive to trying to get her better, trying to make her better. So I need to come back to a place where where I start to to do that again. And I don't think it I don't expect anything profound, like any profound changes, because she still doesn't, she doesn't need anything different in her in her training routine or her training regimen or her conditioning regimen. We're gonna still do all that the same, but there needs in my head there needs to be more attention to you know how we approach getting to a show, how we approach warming up, how we approach our barrel run. Like what are we thinking? What am I thinking about before the barrel run? Am I going in there laxadaisical, just thinking she's gonna give me the same run every time? Or like I need to be, I need to be put in my head, in my mind, I need to be pushing for the little adjustments that can that can potentially make us make us faster. And I need to be intentional about that. And a lot, like I said, a lot of that comes from from the subconscious part of our minds, like the things that we prioritize, the things that we pay attention to, the things that we that we think of or focus on, or you know, things pop into our head, like, oh, maybe I should try that, oh maybe I should try this. Those thoughts, that's what I'm saying. You're not actively consciously thinking about every minutiae every single day. But if your mind knows that this is a project, if your if your mind understands this is a mountain to climb, this is something we have to improve on, this is something we need to focus on getting better at, then all of a sudden, you know, that that reticular activating system kicks in, like that animal instinct part of your brain kicks in, and all of a sudden a lot of stuff starts falling in place without you really even making big crazy different moves. So anyway, I hope that that is something, a little example that um you guys can take with you and maybe apply to your own life. You can you can only do one thing to the best of your ability at a time. And if you're if you're uh shifting your focus to something, it is inevitably shifting your focus away from something else. And we just need to be aware of that and we need to be cognizant of that. And you know, don't accept the status quo, don't, don't accept just being stagnant, because being stagnant means you're getting left behind. On some level, you're getting left behind. If you're not purposely pushing forward, driving forward, trying to be better, you're stagnant and you're on some level getting left behind. So thank you so much for tuning in, guys, and you're gonna go.