This week's episode is about a slightly old-fashioned word, maybe even unpopular word, as that word is discipline. If you think I'm going to tell you to discipline your horses you are wrong. Horses don't need discipline. Horses need routine. ... So who needs the discipline?

It's a sad fact that a lot of my Rider Confidence clients are suffering from depression. If you are, go get it fixed. Don't call your horse your therapist, that's not a fair burden. Enjoy your horse for being a horse, and let your therapist be your therapist

It is impossible to focus on the thing that you do not want without imagining the thing that you do not want. The only way to ignore something is to focus on something else. Such as a perfect circle a perfect figure 8. Is it a bit windy? Do a perfect figure 8. Somebody cutting the grass over there? Do a perfect figure 8. Focus on what you DO want with a laser intensity.... And what do don't want has to move to the side.

Learning is a skill. To take in new information process it and allow it to influence your thinking and behaviour. It is a skill that gets better with practice. So if we want our horses to learn that a tractor is safe, or to learn that we are the leader, O2 learn all the things they encounter in the wide world, they need to learn how to learn. ..... So teach your horse to learn how to learn

Horses are fundamentally safe,. Just like cars, planes, and dogs. And they're getting safer. Even when it goes wrong - it's usually safe.

Just like scrolling through a Facebook or Instagram feed, our minds randomly generate positive, negative, random, superfluous, nonsensical, helpful or unhelpful thoughts. And just like selecting what posts to focus on, we can choose which offerings to focus on when we think about riding......

If you have ever told a child that the situation is fine when you were secretly a bit worried..... The cow in the field, the spider on the wall, then you are already perfectly practiced at faking confidence. the part of your brain which houses the fear response has the processing power of a 7-year-old, and a horse has even less. It's really quite straightforward to fake confidence to these minds in exactly the same manner

As Captain Bleeding Obvious says, small progressions are easier to take than large jumps. And if you take those small steps, it is not only possible to end up at your destination, but inevitable.

What is the next step in achieving your goals? For you, your horse and your riding dreams? It does not matter how big or how little your next step is, as long as you take it, you will inevitably end up at your destination...

...so what's your step for today?