Did you know that most adults who set goals never achieve them?
And no, I’m not talking about New Year’s Resolutions. I mean seriously, does ANYONE keep those?
When you start looking at the “science of change” whether it’s a person or an organization, the failure rate for successful change is pretty astronomical.
I’ll cut to the chase. Looking at the various studies….. whether it’s a fitness goal, a work goal, a financial goal………….the success rate for most adults is usually less than 10% and in most categories it’s less than 5%.
So are 95% of us just miserable slackers that never do what we say we want to do?
Really. What’s this ridiculously high failure rate all about?
This brings me back to something else I learned from Dr. Stephanie Burns. If you missed my introduction about her check out “Learning Lows – Part 1” to see how I met her & what I learned that first meeting.
Dr. Burns is an expert on adult learning. She also has a horse, and learned to ride as an adult so she has unique insight into the fears and failures of the middle aged equestrian.
This was my first show after 10 years without jumping.
Dr. Burns has an entire story about a woman that wanted to learn how to swim. The problem was that she had an irrational overpowering fear of the entire concept. So to help her achieve this seemingly unattainable goal she broke it down into tiny achievable steps.
Step 1
No it’s not have someone throw you in the pool to get over your fear by shock and awe. And no, it wasn’t “get in the pool.”
Step 1 was…….
“Buy a swim suit.”
Yep. You have to start at the BEGINNING.
And piece by piece she laid out tiny easily achievable steps so that each day the lady felt successful.
They were steps like 1. Buy a swimsuit, 2. Find a close pool 3. Figure out where to park at the pool, 4. Buy a pool membership. 5. Go to the pool, put on your swim suit, then take it off and leave. 6. Go the next day and dip your toe in the water, then leave……..
You get the drift right? Of course this is an extreme example due to her FEAR, but by the end of a few months I believe the lady was swimming a mile. If she had started with something like trying to swim a lap, she would have felt like she was drowning and that would have been the end.
But by making her feel successful with each step, she made it….. slowly, bit by bit, and she got it done.
The point is. If you have a goal you have to start somewhere.
Bad Eventer wants to jump around Rolex.
But in order to get there, first I have to……… go to the barn.
How many people have riding goals, at any level……… but they don’t go to the barn?
Bad Eventer has a new pony. He has all the talent in the world………….
we started
at
Beginner Novice
I bought the swim suit.
Love this.
I've gotta say, although I've ridden as a child and AA competitively my whole life, theses last two posts have been nearly literal lifesavers in terms of bolstering my attitude towards my newest endeavor….grad school. As someone who is a year deep, and came from a much "harder" science background, slogging through the bullshit that is starting over at level one in a new discipline can be humbling, and hard to stay upbeat about. I'm a longtime reader for the horsie stuff, but I made my classmate read these two. So thank you, and I look forward to cheering you on at Rolex!
small achievable steps – yessss i love it! so many riders are quick to dismiss the value in tiny milestones, but ya gotta start somewhere!
You go girl!