Expectations

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Hey guys, thanks for tuning in. Thanks for joining. I am on the road. I'm with the with the horses. So in the truck. So hopefully it is not too loud to do this recording, but I wanted to just do something really quick. I don't think this will take very long. I think this will be kind of short. Um but I wanted to just let everyone know that since our last podcast, um something I've done in my life is I've actually started seeing uh sports psychologists for like mental coaching with the horses. Uh you guys know, if you've tuned in here before, you know um this channel is all about using your mind uh to do life the best possible and learning how our mind works, how to use it best, uh, all the stuff and things regarding mental health. So of course I decided it was finally time to take my own advice and really to really be as the most competitive as possible doing the barrel racing with the horses, you know, I should look into getting some mental coaching. I I've done a lot of work on my mind in the past, as if you follow this channel you probably know, um related specific most specifically to like mindfulness and and things like that. Um, but I've never obviously worked specifically with a sports psychologist regarding like competing on the horses. And the reason I decided to kind of delve into that is because I feel like my anxiety when competing is actually getting worse with time. And that's a little perplexing to me because I've been doing this now for, and when I say doing this, I mean traveling, hauling the horses, competing at big barrel races, you know, against a lot of competitors, you know, really, really in the com the real competition type stuff. Um, you know, I've been doing that now for a handful of years. Um I would say maybe it was like well honestly, it was exactly four years ago. Exactly four years ago is when I went to my first what they call the big a big super show. Um and that's when I really started traveling and really started stacking up against you know the best of the best and like real competition and real big competition venues and and things like that. So I've been doing that for four years now, and I've made I can't even count how many runs at these big races, and I've you know I've done this so many times now, and I would think that by now it would be a little bit easier to be confident, and it would be a little less anxiety provoking, but I've actually been experiencing the opposite. It's actually like I have more anxiety now before these races, and more anxiety before our individual runs. And for a little while I thought that's because I had um, so about two years ago I had a couple bad falls with my one horse. We got into some trouble with some things, and we really had to like go back to scratch and build back up, you know, from foundation to to now. And so I thought like the fear, you know, the the memory of that the that fall and that time of struggle was still like lingering with me, and it was really like messing with my confidence. And I'm sure that that is definitely some of it, but that doesn't explain why I'm feeling more anxious on my other horse. Um so I I was like, I think I just want to, you know, just see if talking to somebody would make a difference, see what they have to say, and go from there. And so I had my four my first um session or whatever you want to call it, um, this week actually. So I'm sure there's gonna be more to come because I'm sure I'm gonna learn a lot in this process that is gonna relate more to just competition and competing as an athlete, like as everything related to what we talk about on this channel, you know, the the mental health stuff crosses over. Like what works in one arena probably works in another arena and probably works in another area of your life. So there's definitely life lessons in any and all of it. So I'm sure there's gonna be more talks to come. Um, I'll keep you posted about what I learned. But what I have have discussed so far, which I think is very interesting, because like I said, part of the reason I started I wanted to do this is because I couldn't understand, you know, why my anxiety was going up, you know, with with more reps, with more experience, with more time in the saddle, with with more runs under my belt. Like I've been there done that at this point. So why is my confidence less and why is my anxiety more? Like, that doesn't seem right. So here's here's the interesting thing, and I of course I didn't realize any of this until after talking through it and and thinking about it, but here's what I think has happened, and here's what the you know my score psychologist was highlighting. The there's a difference between expectations and individual objectives or goal settings, and what is interesting is expectations directly correlates with our confidence and our belief in ourselves. Let me explain a little bit further. So, for for example, if if you have an expectation, if I have an expectation to go to this race this weekend, and let's say my expectation is I want to win some money. If you know anything about barrel racing, there's a we're not even gonna get into that, but there's a lot of like luck of where you fall, and there's divisions, and you know, it's it's anybody's game out there if you win money. I mean you gotta be good enough to be in the conversation, but winning money sometimes just means maybe you got lucky, maybe you fell into placing, and and that sort of thing. So you could go out there and you could have a great, you could have the best run you've ever made, and you might not win money. So let's just say your expectation is I want to go win money, and then you don't win any money, now all of a sudden the the standard or the bar that you've set for yourself is not met. And so even though your run was fantastic, you know, for for your for your for where you are in your journey and for where you know you can perform, even if your run was fantastic, now all of a sudden your your brain thinks that you failed. And your brain says, You you messed that up, you failed, you didn't meet your expectation, you didn't meet your standard, and now all of a sudden our confidence starts to plummet. And now all of a sudden, you know, our belief in our abilities and our belief in what we can do, and our and our belief in in what we've been doing, all of that starts to crumble around us. And the other interesting part of it is expectations are things that you cannot often are things that you cannot control in the real moment. And what I mean by that is okay, let's say my expectation is alright, so I've been struggling with my one horse right, like part of part of our struggle was her wanting to shoulder into the second barrel, like years ago. That's part of our struggle. So if my expectation going into the race is oh man, I really and and by the way, expectations can be good or bad, they can be positive or negative expectations. Like I could have the expectation of man, I really need this horse to to to get by this barrel today. Or I could say, Man, I know, I know we're gonna struggle at the barrel. She always struggles at the barrel, like we never get that barrel right. Either of those things, in reality, in the moment, I can't control. I cannot control what my horse does. Now, yes, you can prepare to the best of your ability, you can you can train to the best of your ability, you can do all the the work at home to to try to prepare that animal to respond to you the best of its ability. You can train yourself to try to cue that animal to the best of your ability, but so you can control the preparation part of it, but in that moment, when we're actually making a full-speed run at a race, in that moment, I can't control what that horse does. All I can control is how I ride. That is all I can control, and so those expectations that I'm that I put, when I say, Oh man, you know, I I know she's gonna struggle at that barrel, I know she's not gonna listen to me that at that barrel, or when I say, Man, I really, I just need her to to shape up at that barrel, I just need her to get around that barrel. When I say those things, I'm putting an expectation out there that I have no control over in the moment. So obviously, as we know, anxiety oftentimes, anxiety, worry, stress, it is often, it often revolves around lack of control. Like the things that we that we can't control give us a lot of anxiety because we know it's not within our control. And sometimes we try to make it in our control, which even gives us more anxiety. So I thought that that was very interesting. Um and I think what you know I kind of talked through with this coach is yeah, the the what is probably happening is I'm probably putting high I'm probably putting expectations on these races that I was not putting on them in the past. Like when we first started really traveling to big competitions, I didn't have these expectations. I didn't I I didn't think we I mean honestly, like I was like, we're just gonna put ourselves out there, we're gonna roll the dice, we're gonna see what we get. Like, I don't we might get laughed out the room, we might be so slow, it's gonna be embarrassing. It's like I there were no expectations. I had no expectations. I just was gonna try. My my goal was just go out there and try and see what happens. Just ride your horse and see what happens. And now though, because we have so like that was a world where there was no expectations, like it was just go ride your horse and you fall where you fall, and you do it how you do, and you experience what you experience. Like just get in the saddle and ride the horse. But now what has happened is because we have we have been doing it for four years now. We have had varying levels of success, we have we have won things, we have placed in places, we have we have raised the standard for for ourselves. And now there's expectations involved because now it's like no, now I know I know what we're capable of, and we've we've proven we can do it, and so now the expectation is we have to go out there and we have to keep doing it, and we have to do it again, we have to do it better, we have you know, like we have to replicate it. That in addition to you know, the more involved you get in something, the more invested you become in it. So, like the first the first time hauling away from home to a big race is like, okay, let's just go, let's roll the dice, let's see what happens, you know, like let's just try. But then it was semi-successful. So now it's like, okay, well, now we're gonna invest, we're gonna invest in this, like we're gonna keep going, we're gonna keep doing it, we're gonna spend more money, time, energy, effort, like we're gonna pour into this because we've proven to ourselves that we're we're potentially capable, and so now there's that effect too. Like now you've invested more of yourself into this thing. So with that comes the human tendency to put more expectations on it. It's like, oh, you you've put so much time into this and so much money into this, and like so much of yourself into this, like you better go out there and you better do a good job. Like, you better be faster than you were last week. You better place in a division, you better, you know, win the average, you bet like you better not, you know, come home because you better not make a bad run and drive home disappointed. I mean, that's the big one that I put on myself a lot now that I'm realizing it. I don't want, I know what it feels like to make the the disappointed drive home, and like I think about that a lot. It's like I don't want to come here and be at this race for all these days and then and put this effort into it and put this money into it and and make the disappointed drive home because we didn't execute well, but again, that's an expectation. Like, so what I talked through with this coach is you have to take the expectations out of it. Because the problem is with the ex if you're if you if you have the expectations and you don't meet them, then guess what? You are gonna be disappointed, and the drive home is gonna suck, and your confidence is gonna be shot, and you you're gonna beat yourself up, like you know what are you doing? Like you're a failure, all of the negative things, but if there are no expectations, none of that can happen. So instead, you know what you should focus on is number one, only the things you can control. Like, there's so many variables at these races that are not within your control. And so those should not be a part of the equation because you have no control over them. So you should only be focused on the things you can control in that in that in that split-second moment of your run. And the only thing you can I you know, in this specific example for barrel racing, the only thing I can control in that run is the way I ride my horse. That is it, that's all I can control. So instead of all these big expectations about everything else, about how we do, what we do, that I have no control over half of the stuff anyway, like instead of all that, bring it down to objectives, like set goals and objectives for the only thing I can control, which is the way I ride. So, like, my goal is like for an example, my goal is hand placement around the barrel, like that's it. Just focus on placing my hands where they need to be around the barrel, and that's it, and that's all that's all that needs to be thought about. And when you think about it like that, and I've already been practicing this in my mind, um, obviously, because you have to exercise this just like you do any other mental exercise, just like you work out your muscles and the other parts of your body, you have to practice this stuff. So I've already been practicing it, and it is really amazing how quickly it calms all the anxiety and all the stress and all the thoughts of oh my god, what happened in the past, oh my goodness, like what could happen in the future, like what could go wrong, like all this, that, and the other, because the only thing that matters is focusing on my objective, my goal of putting my hands where they need to be when we get to the barrel. And you know what? If I'm not perfect, which we usually aren't perfect, then okay, it's a goal, like it's a moving target, right? Like, your goals are meant to be set, and like sometimes we get there faster than we want to get there, but like we're striving towards that goal, we're striving to hit that goal perfectly. But the goal post, you know, like you if you don't hit it perfectly, like it's like okay, that's okay, like that was my goal. I fell a little short today, but guess what? Like, tomorrow I'll I'll aim to do it better. Like, there is no all the all the confidence shattering and negative talk and all the worries and all the disappointing and frustration and everything that comes with failing to meet big expectations, like you don't have any of that. Like, instead, what you have is okay, my goal was perfect hand placement, and I was a little short of that today, but you know what, I'll try to do better tomorrow. So I know not everybody listening rides horses, I know not everybody on here competes as an athlete. Like, again, this podcast is about life in general, but these examples I think are just so applicable to other areas and avenues in our life. So I'm hoping this little talk, some somehow, some way, you can kind of think about it, think it over, think about how it might apply to your life, see if it would help you, and stay tuned. I'll let you know what else is going on, and uh please tune back in soon. And hope everyone has a great rest of your day. Bye.