If you read: "Life Lessons: What Being on a Sports Team Taught ME", you will notice that for this post I decided to pick three of those life lessons and develop on how I learned from them.
Recognizing and Managing Emotions
One thing with sports, especially with horseback riding, is that you will have many highs and many, many, many lows! I said: "especially with horseback riding", because you need to deal with an animal that has its own emotions. If the horse isn't having a good day, chances are you won't have an amazing round. You have to deal with the performance whether it is good or bad, and if it's bad, chances are you will come out the arena frustrated or crying. Competing in show jumping has tremendously helped me cope with my emotions. When I was a kid/teen, I would come out of a bad round with the WORST attitude ever and could not help but show my emotions to everyone who was around.
This one time when I was 14, I came out the ring after my round, smashed my whip on the floor, threw myself off the horse (dramatic right?), handed my pony to someone, looked at my dad and said: "Can you believe this insert a swear word horse!". That was the end of it. I grew up in a relatively strict family where this kind of attitude was not tolerated, so that day my dad and I had a talk about my lack of anger management. I remember it like it was yesterday! It wasn't easy for me at first to understand how emotion management could benefit me in my life and why he was making a huge deal out of it... after all I was only a fourteen year old brat (as far as I know). I remember this so clearly because it was the moment I put the emotion management switch on. Every competition I would think to myself: "Is it worth it for me to react badly about this bad event?", and would realize it wasn't. Before I knew it, I started controlling my emotions like a boss at horse shows, and soon after in my life outside of the equestrian world!
Asking for Help is OK
News flash: asking for help is NOT a sign of weakness, but a sign of STRENGTH. After all, we can all do so much more together than we can alone! I learned it the hard way. In my mid teen years I would think I was invincible; I could do it all by myself, and knew everything a person could know. I was obviously mistaken. This one day my actions almost cost me my horse's health. It was a rainy afternoon so my lesson was cancelled. I decided I would still take my mare out of her stall so she wouldn't be stuck in this 12 x 12 box. On her way out, my trainer saw me get the horse prepared and noticed I wasn't putting protection on its legs which could be dangerous if I was about to let her go run loose in the indoor arena (which I was...oops). My trainer nicely recommended I put protections and make sure to bring the horse back in if it would get too excited, for it not to get injured. As a mad teen I simply replied that it was ok and I would do it a.s.a.p., when in reality I was thinking: "Nothing will happen.. I don't need advice on how to take care of my own horse". Turns out my mare got very excited with the storm. Things got out of hand and I immediately regretted not listening to the advice I was given. The horse was cantering from side to side in the arena, back legs closer to the front ones each stride. Thankfully, nothing happened.
Ask for help: you can benefit from others' qualities and knowledge. Offer help: sharing your gifts and talents or helping someone out will only make you richer.
I'm hoping this post was descriptive enough. How did you learn important life lessons? Was it the hard way?
