How to plan a step-by-step progress plan for your horse

How to plan a step-by-step progress strategy for your horse?

I'm going to share with you how I turn my vision into a plan and how you can then turn your vision with your horse into a plan. I will share with you how I integrate my life with horses and how to have excellent communication with your horse.

I used to be the type of person who was just surrendering to whatever happens type of thing... but always wanted to make progress with my horses, and progress was not happening.

And so...

Over the years I developed this strategy for progress with your horse.

It helps you to stay on track, it helps you to not get distracted and it helps you to not get overwhelmed as well

You need to look at these components that I'm going to tell you here...

#1 Clarity in your mind and your body

The other thing about clarity is that it helps you to make the right choices with your horse. 

So, we are constantly having to make choices. I mean, whether it's with our riding or our feeding our horses or whatever, when you have clarity, it helps you to make the right choices.  And the clearer you are in all of these areas, the more results you will get and the more impact you will have on your horse.

The process of clarity starts with...

...our minds and our bodies. 

What do we need to let go of in our bodies? Where are we held? Where is our movement held? Or as we stand, perhaps in a rest position? What do we need to let go of as we move with our horses In Hand? What do we need to let go of? Where do we need to have more cohesion perhaps, as we ride?

Riding is not just following the horse, right?

These are all questions that help us to get clarity in our minds, and our bodies.

When you have those niggling things happening in your body that is going to hold you back. And then how is your movement, speaking to your horse? How are your emotions speaking to your horse? And that's what I mean by clarity in our minds.

And so, when you know the answers to these questions; why you are doing it and what you're doing with your horse, then it makes more sense. 

The first component that revolves around the rider...

#2 Clarity in our horse’s minds and bodies

Reading your horse and understanding what is missing.

What blockages does your horse have?

So just like we have physical niggling things or blockages our horses will also have those.

What does your horse have? What are some specific blockages that your horse has? What do you think is going to make your horse more comfortable in his or her body? These are questions that I want you to think about because this will be how you set up your plan. 

And now around our horse's mind, how do I create curiosity in my horse?

We all know that curiosity is a core emotion with the horses; they're naturally curious, aren't they?

If we can help them to be curious with us, that will help them with their minds with their emotions. What's going  on in their minds and their emotions?

How do we find out what our horses thinking?

One way is to find out what are their buttons that get pushed.

If someone says something or does something that you really get annoyed by, or it makes you go very emotional, that's a button that gets pushed in you...

horses have the same.

They have a situation that pushes their 'button' that causes them to become emotional, it causes them to be to go over onto the other side of being emotional.

So, when we make our step-by-step plan, we need to consider what are those buttons in our horses?

So that...

...We can accept them 

...Live with them 

...Work on healing them,

...Or changing them slightly 

And then maintaining that, when we work in this realm of the buttons, I call it, we're not going to change our horses completely. But we do want to help them with the situation.

We want to address what those buttons are, and help them with the situation. And so, this is going to be very important in your step-by-step plan.

And the last question I have for you around your horse’s mind and body is how do I create draw in my horse so that they can't help but listen to me? As we mentioned, horses are naturally curious, aren't they?

How to create a draw, so that they will stay curious when they're with you, they'll want to be with you?

Those are ways that you can help to create that draw, rather than always doing things that are driving them away from you physically, mentally, emotionally.

Now, how do I integrate my life and horse?

The number one thing that I do is that I make choices, I don't make decisions, I make choices.

Decisions are dead end the word decides.

If you split it apart, the root word "de"means to set apart and "cide", like genocide, fungicide, herbicide, pesticide, whatever, means to kill. So, when you make a decision, you are allowing circumstance to dictate to you what you do and therefore your outcomes, then your outcomes will not be achieved. And you will become a victim of your circumstances.

How to implement your plan...

You're going to implement your plan by choosing three items from each component of clarity.

Then you're going to pick three questions that I gave you or items from each category. So, you will end up with six items in your plan. 

So, an example from the category #1, clarity in your mind and your body, might be:

"In Hand, as I connect with my horse in the lateral movements, I will use focus on Slide Points"

or,

"I will spend 10 minutes a day letting go of negative emotion."

So those are just a couple of examples.  Yours are going to be different because you're going to be dealing and answering the questions that I gave you from each of the categories. 

And so now you have three items for each category and you're going to do this for approximately 30 days. The items can overlap, they don't have to be completely different, they probably will overlap somewhere...make sure that you do at least one item each day. 

So even if you're not with your horse, you can work on your own mind. You can do the one about 10 minutes a day of letting go of negative emotions, but do at least one item a day.

This is a step-by-step approach that will promote improvement for you and your horse.

Definitely, it's not overwhelming and if you work with us in our program, we actually hold you accountable to this process to this plan.  We help you with setting up your strategy with your horse.

We help you to sort out the plan, sort out the strategy and find out what is specific to you and specific to your horse. 

We guide you through this process.

In our program, we deal a lot with how to feel, getting into the details of what the feeling is like and how to feel, because riding is all about feeling. 

It's all about movement. It's all about physics. There's no mystery to it. It's very clear, it's very simple. But that doesn't mean that it's easy. And so, finding help, whether it's help from me or help from somebody else, is something that's going to help you with your plan as you go forward to make progress with your horse.