180. Having the right mind set...

Yesterday evening being the stubborn, determined person i am i decided to hack Spice out on my own again but for some reason i felt more nervous than last time. Why? I have no idea... i was a bit tired due to lack of sleep and if i'm really honest i couldn't really be bothered knowing that i was hacking out the next day and had worked Spice the day before so there was no real need. But i didn't want to let my nerves get the better of me so decided to go anyway. Last time i hacked Spice out alone she was as good as gold so i had no real reason to doubt that she wouldn't be this time but having said that we do have a history and sometimes you can't help but think about the bad times, all i could focus on was what could go wrong and rather than being excited about hacking out i was completely reluctant. Should i have stopped myself? Yes, because it's not just about making Spice confident it's about making me confident and getting on a horse when you feel anything but confident is never a good idea because they sense it the minute you are on their back. Because i was tired I also neglected to do any groundwork before getting on her and didn't even spend 5 mins doing any schooling which would have helped calm my nerves so i made a number of errors before even getting on. Anyway, to cut a long story short we went out and it was far from pleasant. For some reason i just couldn't relax which meant Spice couldn't relax and unlike last time where she didn't have a single spook she was spooking at things left, right and centre and i really had to focus on her 100% to get her passed them. There are things that Spice is genuinely frightened of where it doesn't matter how confident the rider on her back is she will still 'freak out' but i completely believe that her nervous temperament yesterday was totally down to me being nervous so i realized it was the worst thing i could have done to ride her in that state of mind.

So what have i learnt?...That sometimes i need to take a step back and really assess my feelings about a situation before rushing in. On the days where i'm feeling good and positive i should attempt to ride out alone but on the days where i'm feeling less confident (for whatever reason) i should ride out with someone else...in short i should only do what i feel comfortable doing otherwise i will knock not only my own confidence but Spices too.