Sticking to something until you see it to the very end just might earn you a reputation of being reliable and a success, or it may hold you back for years and years and years chasing something that is not worth the effort. But how do you decide which is which? And what of that pesky bad habit that can be accumulated of trying once and giving up when immediate results are not gleaned? Hmm…
Let's just say that I've considered myself to fall into a variety of these different habits – of trying once, twice, thrice and then giving up and moving on or of sticking to my guns for a great many years before finally realizing there is a better way. Equestrians must encounter trials like this every day. Do you choose to keep using the riding method you just started or have been chasing for a decade, or do you move onto something brighter and more shiny?
Fortunately and unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules, only individual judgement based on your past experiences, the individual situation, and the input you're likely accumulating from those around you. Sometimes it is the crowd that is more difficult to change than your own mind… but I'll leave that for another time.
I think of my time first learning dressage, I stuck to it for a couple of years, repeatedly going over the same lessons time and again and then once more for good luck. But never really got anywhere. I kept thinking to myself that either I was really stupid or dressage was extremely difficult – most of the people around me confirmed the later but I couldn't quite agree. I'll say now that it was neither, but instead the manner in which I was being taught dressage that was difficult and exhaustive – and altogether not unlike what everyone else out there is doing for all intents and purposes.
So when did I choose to give up and change? About two years in when I had an odd opportunity to ride with a man who taught Classical Dressage based on Baucher, the French school and his own great many years of experience. And then I found successes.
It has come to my mind that not everything difficult is good, but lately even more I think that nothing good is difficult. Certainly it may not be simple or come overnight, but the push behind you to keep pursuing it is what lacks that difficulty.
Recently I started training for a job, and from two it was extraordinarily difficult to push myself forwards. The training itself was not hard, not in the least bit and I continually told myself that all I had to do was NOT give up and walk away and I would get through it. Does that really sound like the sort of job I'm going to enjoy down the road? I didn't think so either. The second another job opportunity arose my individual push SHOVED me hard in that direction and is continuing to do so.
Horses have been much the same for me. The learning curve has not been easy in many ways – I have never thought myself naturally inclined to anything about horsemanship except perhaps being able to see a horse's emotions from their communications – and still the push has been so simple as to carry me 15+ years down the line and still emphatically in love with these hairy beasts (and quite affectionately referenced as such!).
When have you experienced moments that giving up came just a few tries in and others it never even occurred to you?
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