NEDA A Tip of the Hat January 2021

EDUCATION
BY VINCENT FLORES
Don’t Let Your
Self-limiting Beliefs
Run the Show!
USDF Gold, Gold Bar, Silver & Bronze
medalist, Grand Prix rider, trainer, coach,
and clinician. Based in the Coventry,
Connecticut.
https://vfdressage.webs.com/
As a trainer and clinician, I continuously
meet riders who are
constraining themselves and their
capacity to thrive or succeed in
the sport (whatever their goal is) because of
very engrained limited beliefs. It always
starts the same way; the student will tell me
stories such as:
“I like dressage but I am not
talented for it.”
“I’ll never be able to sit a big
warmblood trot.”
“I will never make it to this level.”
“It’s impossible to make it in
this sport unless you have an
expensive horse.”
“I am a terrible rider but I know
a lot about horse care.”
Etc.
Of course, it is important to be able, and
somehow realistic about what we can
achieve with the horse we have, the time we
have, and the help we can get at a certain
point in our lives. However, most of the time,
these self-limiting beliefs that we have are
the results of incorrect conclusions other
people have made about us (trainers,
parents, peers), and also what we have
adopted for ourselves. But they aren’t real
and are inhibiting our ability to move successfully
forward (unconsciously). Typically,
these beliefs are reinforced by successive
failures which will then fuel the vicious
cycle. More often than not, some of these
limiting beliefs come from our childhood; if
your parents kept telling you that you are
not good at sports for example, or never
good enough in that sport, as an adult this
belief will remain at the back of your mind.
It can push you to do better but It can also
deflate you each time you fail. And therefore
reinforce the belief that you are not good at
this sport. In turn, you will tend to stay in a
situation where you no longer put yourself
at risk; you may tell yourself it is better to
just ride at home and not go to a show –
6 TIP OF THE HAT NEDA.ORG January 2021