Inspire Success through Writing and the Use of Photos
by Laura Daly
Writing your fears and journaling about your lessons, rides and time with your horse can help you learn to ride fear free. The act of writing helps riders learn to see reality and gain control of their fears. In addition, fearful riders should also write down their goals: record your hopes and dreams for your future rides and list your goals. Do not put a deadline on them.
For this exercise, don’t just use words. Find pictures and display them. Use the local feed store ad or pictures from the pages of horse magazines. Make your display colorful and bright. Allow yourself to have big—seemingly impossible—goals, such as riding in a fox hunt in England or jumping a cross country course. Pictures give you a visible goal to work toward. When you look at a picture, you become even more inspired to achieve that goal. Images imprint easily on your brain, and they make it easy to share your dreams with others. When you share your dreams with friends and family they become even more real, exciting, and attainable. Encouraging friends can help you stay on track by helping you stay accountable. They can help sharpen your focus and motivate you.
One of the key things to remember is that goals and dreams do not happen overnight. They can take a lifetime to come true. Other goals may turn out to be only dreams, but in the process of dreaming you let go of some of your fears and started to believe that you could achieve great things. Daring to dream and learning to believe in the impossible begins by stating and picturing your goals. Write, visualize and share your goals because you never know how or when they will come true.
Published August 2014 Issue
Laura Daley is a professional No Limits Horsemanship certified horse trainer and registered Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship (PATH) riding instructor. Laura’s specialty is helping fearful riders. Using techniques she has developed over her lifetime of teaching, she has helped hundreds of people become fear free. Read more about it in Riding Fear Free: Help for Fearful Riders and Their Teachers available on Amazon UK, BN, and other major online retailers. Or check out the RFF website at www.ridingfearfree.com, Riding Fear Free Facebook, or Twitter Feed