In the seventh article of Stephanie Lynn’s series, “10 Steps to the Winner’s Circle”, Lynn discusses how taking responsibility is important to your success in the show pen.
If you ever want to get ahead in life or in the show ring, you must learn to take responsibility for what happens. You are in the driver’s seat, not your trainer. And while your trainer has tremendous affect on your outcome, ultimately it is you who controls your destiny.
You control whether you have great rides or mediocre rides. You control who you train with and decide whether that person is helping or hurting your efforts to become a better rider and a great horseman. You control whether your ride will be good or bad, whether you blame outside circumstances or take responsibility. The wind should not take the blame when you find your seat in the sand after not taking the time to longe your horse on a cold windy day.
There are many factors that must come together to create a great ride. It makes it easy for any of us to find fault with someone or something and allow an outside factor to be the cause of a poor ride. However, to be a great rider, a great leader, we must hold ourselves accountable for outcomes good and bad. It is not the wind that gets us bucked off.
In the book, Good to Great, Jim Collins uncovers the reasons that some companies overcome odds to become great companies. Like great riders the companies had some things in common. Some are topics worthy of separate titles and chapters in any series. One such factor Jim Collins terms the window and the mirror. What he means by this is that leaders of successful companies look outside the window when granting credit to their success. They look inside when looking for somewhere to place fault.
On the other hand, companies with inferior records of growth and success look outside themselves to blame someone else for poor performance. At the same time they “preen in front of the mirror and credit themselves when things went well”.
If you are ever to succeed, you will have to take responsibility for the actions you take in creating your ride. You will have to learn to:
- Trust your gut
- Listen to your horse
- Look at what you did prior to your ride to help or hinder your ride
- Pay attention to how your horse responds to you on any given day
- Experiment with different strategies
- Be open to constructive criticism
This does not mean that your horse gets a free pass and is never held accountable for naughty behavior. Instead, by taking responsibility for your horse’s actions, you make discipline easier for the horse to comprehend. You horse will understand because you have reflected on the circumstances, responses and outcome. You and your horse will begin to walk the same path; one with confidence, one that leads to great rides built one good ride at a time.
From Jim Collins’s book, Good to Great
Confront the brutal facts (yet never lose faith)….You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
About Stephanie Lynn: Professional Horseman Stephanie Lynn coached her first AQHA World Champion in 1988. She has since coached, trained and shown World, Congress and Honor Roll horses across disciplines. She is a judge for AQHA, NSBA and APHA and has judged World Championship shows for each association. Most recently, Stephanie is the author of The Good Rider Series and A Lifetime Affair: Lessons Learned Living My Passion. The Good Rider Series is a library of resource material that is both practical and applicable in the barn and show ring for riders. Stephanie can always be reached through her website: http://www.stephanielynn.net to answer your questions, schedule a clinic or lesson.
