APPLY YOURSELF

APPLY YOURSELF

              This past couple of weeks have been really busy for me. On top of taking care of horses and cows, I’ve been working longer hours at my other job, on top of working extra horses. This past week, I worked cows and irrigation on Tuesday, branded cows on Wednesday morning followed by working the cows for a rein cow-horse show in the afternoon. On Thursday, I went schooling on a cross-country course with Amy, and then Friday, worked cows for the rein cow-horse show again. I suppose that Nate and Amy never told me that my internship would be boring….

              At this point, I have been in Colorado for nine months. This internship hasn’t been all rainbows and butterflies. It’s been really hard sometimes, and there have been many times I’ve felt a bit ignorant. I’ve made more mistakes than I can count. It seemed like I let the water tank overflow at least once every week for the first four months. For a while we had a pond where the field had been named after me.

              Needless to say, the last nine months have been a journey, but this opportunity is something I’ve dreamed about for my whole life. So even when it’s been hard, even when I’ve been ashamed of a mistake I’ve made, even when I feel inadequate to do the job, I haven’t given up. This is my dream, so I choose to apply myself. And for a long time, I didn’t seem to see any progress.

Change Doesn’t Happen Overnight

              What is often hard about making a change is that you don’t see the progress yourself. It’s like a child growing. The parents don’t see any change day to day, but in a few months when they look back at pictures of their baby as a newborn, they see how much growth and change has happened. That’s how it is with self-improvement. Often the changes are so small you don’t notice that you are making any progress at all.

A couple weeks ago, when we had the branding here on the farm, Amy’s brother-in-law came to help. The last time he had been on the farm was in early December. Over that time he was here recently, while we were sorting cows and riding horses, he commented to Nate how much stronger of a rider I’ve become since he was here last.

Now to me, I don’t feel much of a difference. But that’s because the growth has been so gradual, that I can only see the difference when I think about how I rode nine months ago. However, Nate’s brother-in-law has an outside vantage and can compare snippets of me from one point in my growth to another, which allows him to see the change very clearly.

Ride the Jump

              One area where I have been able to feel my growth is in my cross-country work. I rode my first cross country course in early April, and that in itself was a learning experience. Since then, I have been able to go back to that same course to school over some of the jumps a little more. They say there are stages in learning, and I would by no means say that I am “competent,” but I think I have started being “consciously incompetent.” This means that I may not do everything right, but at least I know what I’m doing wrong!

              Whenever we jumped something before, Gabe has always been super confident about it. On our first cross-country course, however, I felt him be truly unconfident for the first time. He tried to sell out on me when we would get up to a jump. Since then, I’ve been able to really work on riding the jump. I have to bring up my leadership and reinforce his natural confidence or he will lose it instead of building it.

              In life, it’s important that we “ride the jumps” as well. Everyone talks about “leaps of faith,” but you have to follow through with your leap. If you go for something, truly go for it with everything you have, you can’t back out half-way through the jump. You’ll just fall down.

              This is a huge trend in a lot of animal training. People will try one thing, and if it doesn’t work the first time, they try something else. As this continues, they get frustrated because they never see any results. The reason this never works is because you aren’t giving your animal any clear parameters or consequences. They are as confused as you are frustrated! However, if you can choose one method, really apply yourself to it, and follow through for long enough to actually affect a change, then you will always see results.

              There is something that Nate says to me often, which has really stuck with me: “Something done confidently, even if it’s done wrong, looks better that something done right unconfidently.” I love this saying, because it really speaks to those that get stuck in “paralysis of analysis.” Who cares if you don’t have it all together? Nobody does! Just do something, and truly apply yourself to it.

Improvement Never Ends

              Another great experience I’ve had lately has been getting to work the cows for a local rein cow-horse show. The show takes place at a large, really fancy indoor arena. The cattle pens are outside and we bring a numbered set in at a time. Depending on the class, we either leave the entire set in the arena for herd work, or we put one cow in at a time for what is called “boxing” and “fencing,” which are two different ways of working a single cow along the rail and in a pattern.

              If the rider needs a single cow for the class, there is a system for us in the alley of opening gates and sorting off a single cow to be sent out into the arena. Then after the rider’s time is up, or the pattern is finished, we have to ride out into the arena and herd the cow back into the alley.

              What was really great about being able to help with this show was that it was something I was able to help with in August of last year. This year I was really able to feel how much more capable I am at working cows compared to when I was trying to help back then. Now, a lot of it feels like second nature, and I know much better when and where to be in relation to the cow to help persuade it to move where I want it to.

              However, there is still so much for me to learn. I know both Nate and another cowboy we were working with could see my improvement from last year, but they still had plenty of advice on how I could make my ride even better, more concise, and efficient. The eight months in between those two shows required long, hard work for me to make the changes I had made. I never would have gotten there if I hadn’t applied myself to it, but it would be silly for me to believe that there is ever a place I could get to where there are no more improvements to be made. As we continue in life, there are goal-points along the way, but the journey never ends.

Final Thoughts

              Applying yourself is so important in every aspect of life, but you also have to be realistic with yourself about the goals you are setting. I apply myself to baking because I truly enjoy it and it’s something I’m naturally good at. Am I ever going to be Martha Stewart? No, not even close. But the more I learn about baking and apply myself to getting better, the more confident I feel about my skills.

              This goes along with every goal you set in every area of your life. Will you do it perfectly the first time around, or ever, for that matter? No, probably not. But if you apply yourself and are always striving to feel more confident and better than the day before, you will improve, whether you see it or not!