These 3 Questions Help You Reach Your Goals

Learn 3 questions that’ll transform your mindset and help you reach your equestrian goals. First, you’ll get clear on what you really want. 

Then you’ll learn how to harness the power of your brain to challenge your so-called limitations and start creating the reality where your dreams DO come true!

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Podcast show notes for this episode: https://www.marydebono.com/blog/h35

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Transcript

Hey, I have a quick but very powerful episode for you today. Okay? So if you're like most horse people, you have goals, you have things you wanna do with your horse, and maybe there's a number of things or even just one or two that you haven't achieved yet that you're not doing that you really want to do.

You know, it could be something as simple as countering down the trail, or I shouldn't even say that as simple as, for some people, that's a very big deal. Okay? Maybe it's jumping a course of jumps or jumping cross country. Maybe it's advancing to the next level of dressage. Maybe it's raining, you know, whatever it is. Trail obstacles could be any number of things.

Maybe it's things you're doing on the ground with your horse. Like, I love doing liberty play, what I call liberty play, which is all based on, you know, obviously my horse being at liberty and positive reinforcement. So whatever it happens to be that you want to do, I'd like to help you get there. Okay? So I'm going to give you a simple little process today that's going to help you achieve what you want with your horse.

Okay? So my first question to you is, what do you want? What is it that you'd like to do? And be really clear about it. Create a vision. Create think, you know, really create, you know, visual images, but, and very importantly, create feelings. What are the feelings you want?

So, be very, very clear about this. You don't have to like do a vision board or anything like that, but start to have real clarity about what you want. Okay? This is important because a lot of times we're not really telling our brain what we want. We're thinking we want something, or we see someone else doing it.

We think it's really cool, but we're not really clear. We haven't committed to it. So I'm going to ask you to take a moment, maybe pause this recording, take a moment, and write down what you want. It could be one little thing, it could be 12 big things, whatever it is, but just a kind of stream of consciousness. Just write it down and be really clear.

Think about the feelings you want. Think about, you know, the actual experiences, you know, and how you hope your horse feels as well, right? So think of all, you know, really drill down and be detailed about it, Okay? Be clear, be clear about it. And then my second question to you is, why don't you have that yet?

Okay? What has been holding you back from having that? Why? If that's what you want, why don't you have it right now? You may think, Well, there's a number of reasons, Mary, I'm, I'm anxious. I'm anxious all the time, so I can't canter down the trail. Okay? So write that down. Write that down.

Okay, that you're anxious. Maybe another one is you're, you feel like your hips are really tight, so they're, you know, you can't have a nice balanced seat. You can't use your leg aids effectively. So it's difficult to do certain, certain activities with your horse. Okay? Write that down.

So, whatever it happens to be, maybe you have really poor posture, and your trainers always yelling at you to sit up straight. Maybe you haven't learned to coordinate your shoulders in your upper back and your hands, so your hands are bouncing all over the place so you can't advance and dressage. Maybe your leg position isn't steady enough to jump, you know, whatever the reasons are.

And even if you're not like, quite clear as far as your body or anything, just, just have, just write down what you think is holding you back. Maybe it's that you're not really committed to it, whatever it is, Okay? So whatever it happens to be, write down what you think is holding you back. What's stopping you from already having what you want to have?

So think about any fears, any frustrations, you know, the different challenges that you're, that you have. And again, take a moment, write some, some of these down, okay? And now what I'd like you to do is shape them into questions. So for example, let's, let's use the example of anxiety, the anxious writer.

So she says, You know, I'm not confident. I'm always anxious as if that's just a given, that she's always going to be anxious. And I see this too in certain approaches where people think you're either you're this or you're that. And they don't realize that there may be moments of anxiety and moments of confidence. And you can, you can increase the moments of confidence.

I've helped a lot of people with this. You're not stuck in some certain state where you're, you know, at the mercy of this is you're, this is your, your the quality you have, right? That you're an anxious person, not at all. So I'm going to ask you to reframe that. If that applies to you or if whatever applies to you to say, instead of saying, I'm not confident.

I'm anxious, that's what's holding me back. Change that to how can I be a more confident rider.  So switch it around. How can I be a more confident rider that will get your brain looking for resources to help you be a more confident rider? And what's funny about that, just the fact that you're asking that question puts you into a resourceful state, which already improves your confidence, Okay?

Right? This is how the brain works. So you're giving it a direction and it's going to follow that. So again, I see this so much when people are, oh, you know, they're, they're in a certain neurological state or whatever, they, they're always anxious and certain things or going to happen because you're in that anxiety, you know, state of anxiety, change it, start to change it. 

And we have several different, different processes that you can use. By the way, I've helped lots of people with this, where you can become more confident, you can develop your confidence, okay? In different situations. But remember, I'm gonna just tell you this right now, despite what anyone tells you, you're a confident person, okay?

You're a confident person. And how do I know that? Because if you've ever done anything competently, you're probably pretty confident about it. And as silly as this sounds, that can be as simple as tying your shoes, okay? Like, okay, I know how to do that. I've done that many times since I was quite young.

And you're confident and you're confident at that. So it's something you developed. You probably weren't really confident about tying your shoelaces the first time you did it, right? So again, be wary of people that want to categorize you and say that, you know, you are this type of person or you're that type of person, right? And or don't.

And don't do that to yourself. That's what happens. We do it to ourselves and we start to say, I am a this, or I'm that change that. I mean, this will help you in every area of your life, not just your horse life. So I get, can you tell, I'm getting really excited about this cuz it's really near and dear to me because I've seen so many people get put into a kind of like boxes and it's very limiting.

So right away, you know, change that, flip it, and start asking better questions of yourself, right? They say the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. Well, this is a great way to improve the quality of your life. Flip that, how can I be more confident? You will start to find resources to help you become more confident.

And again, just putting yourself into a more resourceful state already is the first step to greater confidence. Okay? Okay. So let's use another example. A person says that they have tight hips as if, okay, they have tight hips, that they'll always have tight hips. I had incredible hip problems starting when I was 18 years old. And it lasted.

It affected my riding. It affected so many things, right? It was painful and I had all kinds of issues and among other physical issues I might add. And I was told repeatedly by professionals that I would not get better. That in fact, I would get worse. And luckily, luckily, I eventually found the Feldenkrais Method, which is the method that I teach.

And it changed everything. So I went from a person that had this painful hip problem, and had nerve damage from severe carpal tunnel syndrome. And I had all kinds of things. And so I went from, okay, that's my reality to how can I have more comfortable hips? How can I live pain-free? How can I have great functioning and strength in my arms?

Okay? And I was able then to, to, to, to jump into the Feldenkrais Method, for example, that helped me get out of all those challenges, okay? So that's why I'm on such a mission to teach this because it totally transformed my life more than 30 years ago. So, those problems have not resurfaced.

So I'm very, very blessed and I'm so grateful that I discovered the method when I did. So anyway, that's why I wanna share it with you. But these are questions like I said, you can apply to any area of your life. So reframe it, Put yourself in a more resourceful state. Get your brain looking for answers for you. Okay? So now let me give you a third question.

The third question is, so think about the vision, the what you answered in the first question about what you want, right? Remember you got really clear about what you wanted? Created a vision. Now ask yourself, what are you willing to trade in order to get that vision, in order for that to come to fruition? What are you willing to give up

And I'll tell you the amazing women that are in my move with your horse program, it's open to men and women. By the way, we happen to have all women right now, the amazing people in that program. They give up, oh, probably an hour or so, a week to work to improve their movement, their flexibility, their balance, their confidence, and they also learn how to improve that for their horses as well, right?

There's a hands-on component for the horses and there's a movement awareness component for the humans as well. So they give up, maybe they're not doom-scrolling, right? Right? Cuz they give up. Maybe they're not watching as much Netflix, whatever it is. But they made a commitment, right?

They made a commitment and they gave something up. So ask yourself, what are you willing to give up to bring that vision to fruition? To bring it into real life, to have it, to experience those things that you want. Okay? So real quick, let me just recap. Get really clear on what you want.

Ask yourself, what is it that I want? It's really actually helpful to do this every day. Maybe every morning. Ask yourself, what is it I want? What do I want? And again, this can apply to any area of your life. What do I want? Now? Ask yourself. Why don't I have that? And then you might start thinking about, okay?

I don't have it because of this. Okay, take whatever this is, whatever fear, frustration, or challenge that you came up with, and shape it into a question, How can I have X, Y, or Z? Okay? Again, that's going to help your brain start to target, to find resources for you so that you can have it.

The third question is, what am I willing to give up to have that vision? Has it come to life? Okay? And you might find that you can find little pockets of time, for example, that you were kind of wasting, right? And that you realize that your commitment to the vision is the most important thing, right? So you're willing to do a little trade for it.

Okay? So with that in mind, with that in mind, I'd like to invite you to the free challenge that we're doing. We're doing a little simple challenge about, it's gonna be super fun though, How to unlock your horse's potential or unlock your horse's superpowers. So I have seven keys, right?

We're gonna do this over five days, and you will learn how, you'll just learn these easy but super powerful processes to unlock your horse's potential. So the link to join up will be in the show notes. Okay? So we're at whatever podcast app. If you're listening to this on a podcast app, it'll be there.

If you're watching this on YouTube, the link will be in the description. THE LINK IS marydebono.com/unlock. If for some reason you don't find it, just go to email me, email me, support mary Debono dot com, and we'll take care of you. Okay? So my website is marydebono.com, but email support is mary@marydebono.com. 

If for some reason you can't find the link to the free challenge, okay? There's gonna be giveaways, goodies, it's gonna be great. Okay? And I look forward to seeing you there. So thank you so, so much for joining me on this little short episode, and I can't wait to talk to you again. Bye for now.