What does building new mental habits mean?
In this context, building new mental habits means that you are ridding yourself of your old way of thinking and working to develop a new way of thinking. Old mental habits are often debilitating and interfere with your progress and performance goals, whereas new mental habits are helpful and are meant to promote active progress towards your performance goals. Building new mental habits and letting go of old mental habits is an active and intentional process where you are paying close attention to your thoughts and working to implement newfound mental skills. Since these new skills have not quite yet developed into habits just yet, there must be repetition and consistency over time to make them your brain’s new “norm”.
Why is building new mental habits important for riding?
Building new mental habits is important for riding due to the nature of our brains and our horses’ brains. If you let your brain run on autopilot, it will revert to “survival mode”, which heightens your attention on both real and psychological “threats”, ranging from a nearby mountain lion, to the jumps being raised a hole. Rather than letting the brain choose your thoughts, which has a direct effect on your feelings, actions, and riding, building new mental habits allows you to change your thought processes and patterns in a manner that propels you forward rather than holds your growth and progress back. The brain is naturally designed to keep you cautious, questioning, and even fearful, but we have the power to override these negative, unhelpful thought patterns and replace them with helpful mental habits. Aside from helping ourselves out, building new mental habits helps our horses out since they live in mental “survival mode” as natural prey animals. We can help positively influence them by feeding them confidence through our thoughts, feelings, and riding. If we want to level up in our riding, then we need to replace the negative, unhelpful mental habits with positive, helpful mental habits that are built over time, repetition, and consistent efforts.
How do I build new mental habits?
Before you can build new mental habits, you need to be aware of your current, maladaptive mental habits that are holding you back from consistently riding at your best. Think about your thought patterns, whether that be rooted in nerves or perfectionism, for example, and think about the consequences that come with those unhelpful thoughts, such as negative feelings or defensive riding. Once you know what you want to change, you can start making a plan of action towards your new and improved mindset goals. Gather as much information as you can so that you can recognize when and even why you are thinking in an unhelpful manner that is interfering with your rides. The key is to both notice and intervene as early as you can as it is happening in real time. The more you replace and repeat these new mental habits, the more they will stick.
