Winning Habits

How Elite Equestrians Master the Mental Game

Annette Paterakis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000528657
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Geschichte & Theorie in der Psychologie

A unique and groundbreaking analysis of how to succeed in equestrian sport, this book unpacks the winning habits of successful equestrians to form a toolkit for readers to develop their own winning habits.

Applying psychological understanding in peak performance, this book is bolstered by interviews with top contemporary professional show jumping athletes to explore and show how leading equestrians have interpreted various methods and built them into approaches for their own training. Theoretical concepts such as mindset, deliberate practice, focus and flow are broken down and translated into practical steps for a more powerful and effective way of thinking, training and performing. Renowned equestrian mental coach Annette Paterakis reveals factors of success, as well as answers common questions, from building lasting confidence to responding to failure. Smashing the myths of talent and hard work, Paterakis offers a refreshing take on mindset, focus and approach to success both in and out of the show ring.

An essential read for anyone who would like to learn about or improve their mental game, this book is uniquely suited for equestrian riders, coaches and other athletes, as well as offering supplementary reading for applied sport psychology courses.

1 Mindset

DOI: 10.4324/9781003204084-1

I believe that it was the mindset I had adopted on my journey as an equestrian that greatly determined the trajectory of my career and life. As you will read in this chapter, the limiting mindset I started out with caused me to feel frustrated and demotivated as a young aspiring athlete. As a mental coach today, I see the same happening for many of the athletes and people I work with. No matter the background, age or level, their underlying mindset has negatively influenced their confidence, performance, excitement and enjoyment. This group has one glaring commonality; a fixed mindset. Through her research, Carol Dweck, a leading psychologist and researcher into achievement and success, realized there are two fundamental mindsets that can greatly influence our determination and resilience on our path to becoming the best we can be: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.

In the context of this book, Mindset is the belief you have created about your own potential, what you believe to be possible, and based on that, what motivates and drives you. In a nutshell, when in a growth mindset, we believe that our potential is limitless and the possibilities of succeeding are numerous, this creates a drive and motivation to continuously improve and grow. In a fixed mindset one believes that our potential is bounded and determined by talent; the possibilities, therefore, are restricted and uncertain and the motivation to succeed comes down to seeking validation and proof that one is good enough. Most often, we are neither in one mindset or the other, but we have acquired a combination of both fixed and growth beliefs. For the purpose of explaining the impact of these mindsets, however, I will portray them separately and explore what it looks like when we have adopted one or the other. Just keep in mind that even an expert like Carol Dweck mentioned, “in truth we’re all a mixture of the two.”

In her bestselling book Mindset, Dweck asks the following question, “If you had to choose, what would your preference be; loads of success and validation or lots of challenges?” The answer to this question is quite telling about the extent to which you have adopted a fixed or a growth mindset. To be clear, neither is right or wrong but the mindset you adopt has a huge impact on how you perceive success, failure and feedback. How can it be that a simple, often subconscious, difference in mindset can have such an important impact on one’s career, relationships, choices, behavior, performance and trajectory of life? Let’s explore the difference between the two opposing ways of thinking, a fixed versus a growth mindset.

Fixed Mindset

The two mindsets are like two different worlds. Enter the fixed world and you believe that you either have what it takes to succeed, or you don’t. You believe that your core abilities are fixed and perhaps you can improve them with training to some extent, in essence, you are either a natural or you are not. You either have the necessary talent to succeed or you don’t. This creates a rigid and inflexible way of thinking and you feel the need to prove yourself. You constantly feel the need to be validated. You need proof that you have what it takes to become a successful rider. As a result, the outcome, your performance and the end results are your main concern. Coming out of the arena with a mistake is very upsetting as it may be proof you are not good enough. Therefore, you are scared of failure and making mistakes, which often leads to the desire to be and ride perfectly, make your performance look effortless and be able to sustain this perfection at every level and in every class you enter. Only then you will be happy and able to enjoy the ride. In order to keep proving yourself this way, you stay in your comfort zone. You prefer to stay safe so you can maintain this level of excellence or at least avoid making mistakes. You tend to identify yourself by your results and you take mistakes, failure and feedback very personally. When you win, you are successful and when you lose, you are a failure. Needless to say, this is not sustainable; you will make mistakes and when you do, you tend to dwell on them instead of learning from them and thinking about how you are going to fix them. Ironically, your performance plateaus as a result or even drops over time and you keep making the same mistakes. You don’t feel in control over your own destiny, instead, you either feel blessed, special and confident when things go well and doomed, unlucky and worthless when they don’t.

To a show jumping rider or any athlete for that matter, the fixed mindset creates great pressure to succeed and to prove good enough. This often translates into worrying, over-thinking and with that, becoming distracted when in the arena. You’re focused on the results (which reside in the future), not on the process, which means your mind jumps forward into the future instead of staying in the present moment. As a result, you are more “in your head” than you are feeling the horse beneath you and so-less connected with your horse.

Let me elaborate. Imagine you go into the arena. You jump fence number one, two and three when on your way to jump number four, you hear the pole drop on the ground behind you. Straight away you feel this disappointment as you think, “I can’t believe I had that one down, what a stupid mistake!” Now you are one stride before jump number four and you realize you are too close, you pull and sit back, but it’s too late, this one comes down too. Now you are really upset because you just eliminated your chances of you qualifying for the next round. You go from being in the past, upset about the mistake you made, to the future, not being qualified, instead of being in the present moment feeling what is going on underneath you.

In essence, a fixed mindset stimulates a focus on results, perfection and the need to prove yourself. It increases fear of failure, overthinking and worry of making mistakes, which creates negative self-talk and distraction. Conversely, enjoyment, motivation and confidence all rise and drop with the coming and going of validation.

To some of you, this may sound a bit dramatic, but in all honesty, this is exactly how I felt when I was a professional rider and I know many clients who feel or have felt this way when in a fixed mindset. If you recognize yourself in elements (or all) of the description above, you too may have subscribed to (parts of) a fixed mindset. This doesn’t mean you have a weak mental game or that there is something wrong with your thinking, it just means you have adopted some unhelpful beliefs along the way. As we will see at the end of this chapter, judging yourself when you recognize some fixed traits showing up is not doing yourself any justice. Instead, let’s go on a journey and learn about the opposite position of the growth mindset.

Growth Mindset

Stepping into a growth world means you are much more focused on improvement and becoming the best version of yourself. Sure, the results matter, but they don’t define you. The way you ride in the ring and your results are feedback of how well you have trained, they are a result of your preparation and processes. Therefore, instead of being solely focused on results, you are much more interested in, if not intrigued by the process. You believe that you can change, grow and progress through training and experience. Though you may start with your own unique talents and characteristics, your true potential is unknown. With the right kind of training and many hours of that practice, anything is possible. It doesn’t mean you are guaranteed to be the next Jeroen Dubbeldam, Beezie Madden or McLain Ward, but unlike believing your abilities are set in stone, you believe your full potential is unknown. Based on this open mindset, not knowing your full potential means you constantly push yourself to become better.

The key quality of the growth mindset is its passion for learning, the desire to keep stretching yourself and to constantly push outside your comfort zone. Failure is not something to avoid, but rather something to learn from. In fact, in a fixed mindset, when failing, your first response is that you are not good enough. Conversely, in a growth mindset, failure means your training is not good enough. Often failure is not even viewed as such, but rather that you are challenging yourself and therefore improving. In this way, some might even welcome failure.¹ As constant improvement is the main aim, result-based goals are not there to prove something but merely to challenge yourself to become better. The mere joy of riding, improving yourself and your horses are the main motivator and source of enjoyment and fulfillment. As a result, your confidence and motivation to train are stable and sustainable.

In a nutshell, the difference between the two worlds is that in a fixed mindset you aim to prove yourself, whereas, in a growth mindset, you aim to improve yourself.

Let’s get inspired and look at two examples of a growth mindset Dweck provides in her book Mindset.

“Boxing experts measure protégés fists, reach, chest expansion and weight in order to identify the “naturals.” Muhammad Ali failed these measurements. He was not a natural. He had great speed but he did not have the physique of a great fighter, he didn’t have the strength and he didn’t have the classical moves. In fact, he boxed all wrong. He didn’t block punches with his arms and elbows. He punched in rallies like an amateur and he kept his jaw exposed. He pulled back his torso to evade the impact of oncoming punches, which Jose Torres said was “like someone in the middle of a train track trying to avoid being hit by an oncoming train, not by moving to one or either side of the track, but by running backwards. Sonny Liston, Ali’s opponent, was a natural. He had it all, the size, the strength and the experience. His power was legendary. It was unimaginable that Ali could beat Sonny Liston. The matchup was so ridiculous, that the arena was only half full for the fight. But besides his speed, Ali’s brilliance was his mind. Not only did he study Liston’s fighting style, but he closely observed what kind of person Liston was outside of the ring: “I read everything I could where he had been interviewed. I talked to people who had been around him or had talked with him. I would lay in bed and put all the things together and try to get a picture of how his mind worked.” And then he turned all that against him. Ali’s victory over Liston is boxing history.”

If Ali had had a fixed mindset, he would have felt defeated before even starting the fight. He would have worried about his performance and all his shortcomings. He would have doubted his unique approach and technique. Instead, being in a growth mindset he did not focus on what could go wrong, he focused on what he could control and how to get it right. Like a butterfly, its beauty lies in the preparation, the time spent in its cocoon, fighting to get out prepares the butterfly to spread its wings and fly. Similarly, Ali focused on the process instead of the results and prepared himself in every way possible, relentlessly training his body and mind, going over every detail to out master the “talented” favorite.

Dweck continues, “Michael Jordan wasn’t a natural either. He was the hardest working athlete, perhaps in the history of sport. It is well known that Michael Jordan was cut from the high school varsity team, we laugh at the coach who cut him. He wasn’t recruited by the college he wanted to play for (North Carolina State). Well, weren’t they fooling? He wasn’t drafted by the first two NBA teams that could have chosen him, what a blooper! Because now we know he was the greatest basketball player ever, and we think it should have been obvious from the start. When Jordan was cut by the varsity team, he was devastated. His mother told him to discipline himself. Michael understood and left the house at six in the morning to go practice before school. At the university of North Carolina, he constantly worked on his weaknesses – his defensive game and his ball handling and shooting. The coach was taken aback by willingness to work harder than anyone else. Once, after the team lost the last game of the season, Jordan went and practiced his shots for hours. He was preparing for the next year. Even at the height of his success and fame, after he had made himself into an athletic genius, his purposeful practice remained legendary. For Jordan, success stems from the mind. “The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I’ve always said that and I have always believed that.” Other people don’t always believe that however. They only see the end product, the physical perfection that led to his greatness.”

Would Michael Jordan have become the icon and idol he is today if he had had a fixed mindset? Imagine what would have happened after those setbacks, being turned down over and over again. Focused on his failure would he have gotten up early the next day to deliberately and purposefully train his skills? It’s easy to see the end product and think, “oh but he is a natural,” “he worked hard yes, but surely he was also more talented than the rest.” Can you say with 100% certainty that those athletes you consider “talented,” were actually gifted from day 1? It’s not about what mother nature has given us, it’s what we do with it that makes all the difference.

In show jumping, there are similar examples of riders who didn’t start off with that natural ability. These riders worked very hard to compensate for their lack and found a way to turn their weaknesses into strengths and against all odds, become successful.

Take Markus Fuchs for example. The Swiss showjumper has been to five Olympic Games and he was part of the Swiss team to win the silver medal at the 2000 Olympics. When growing up, however, Markus was not considered to be the most talented rider. In fact, his brother Thomas was the one with all the “talent” and “good feeling.” Markus told me “I was never as gifted as him. For 25 years, I was convinced I was not good enough as a rider. On top of that, staying cool under pressure was never my advantage. But I just continued and eventually I got an amazing horse, Tinka’s Boy.” In order to compensate for his lack of talent and ability to stay cool under pressure, Markus did everything he could to improve himself. He got different kinds of trainers, worked on his physical training and trained his mind with a technique called Autogenic training. I have to admit, I had never heard of this kind of mental training so I looked it up. In summary, Autogenic training is a desensitization – relaxation technique developed by the German psychiatrist Johannes Heinrich Schultz.² It uses a combination of self-hypnosis techniques, helping the body to relax. By repeating the same phrases with a focus on relaxing the body and heartbeat, it helps to self-regulate the central nervous system, letting go of the fight or flight response to become more relaxed and focused. Determined to find a solution, a better way, Markus tried new things to improve himself.

That said, Markus still felt that at important moments when the pressure was on, he couldn’t make it happen and as he called it “failed.” But there were also moments where he did manage to curb the nerves and thrive. Markus explained “I was in Gothenburg for the World Cup final and I believe I was in the lead after the first round. I still remember I went to the stables to lie on a straw bale to practice my mental training. I was so relaxed after that, that I nearly missed the second course walk. But it worked, my horse [and I] won.”

Although an incredibly hard worker and perhaps too hard on himself, in hindsight Markus admits that he was not as consistent with his mental training as he could have been. He explains, “Because there comes a stage where you win a lot, you really think you are good but then when the pressure was there I still became too nervous again.” We need to take into account the element of time when all this took place, however. Mental training was not at all part of a riders training (it still barely is today), in fact, it may have even been controversial at the time. But Markus was open-minded enough, dedicated to finding solutions enough to try something new and with great success.

Perhaps his success ironically caused him to ease his mental training, something I see happen all the time with my clients. If Markus would have been more consistent with his mental training, he may have continued his success and ended his car...