I know so many of us feel overwhelmed with starting a new training regime or bringing our horses back into work because we just don’t know where we’re going to find the time. It’s so hard to find motivation at this time of year when you’re staring at your mud-covered hairy yak in the field and don’t even know where to begin. I’ve taken something I learned from other areas of my life and I apply it to the horses too. Motivation comes after you start.
Maybe you can’t manage a 30 minute session at the moment, but I bet you can manage at least a 5 minute one. You don’t even need to go to the arena, practise your halting and leading on the yard or on the way to the field, do 5 minutes of practising standing still in an area they find a bit more challenging, maybe by the mounting block, or practice going in and out of the gate with softness.
I have been doing no more than 10/15 min sessions with my older horse Lenny these past few weeks and he is feeling so much more settled in his mind and I am able to start asking a little more of him. This morning I didn’t have much time and I wasn’t going to work with my horses at all, but I won’t have time to see them tomorrow either so I just pulled them out on the yard and did a short session practising some posture exercises with them both. I even chucked the GoPro on a bucket so I could send videos to my physio.
Every little helps and if you use your time wisely you can be really effective. Quality over quantity every time. It is much easier to get your brain to agree to doing 5 minutes 🧠 than it is to an hour, and most of the time once you’ve started you will want to keep going a bit longer. Don’t look so far ahead, just chip away where you’re at now, it will pay off.
Here is a photo of us in our professional “I’m in a mad rush don’t look at me” attire this morning ✌️.
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