The past year has not even remotely gone to plan for me. I had big dreams. I would spend the entire year working for and riding with my coach, Zach Brandt. I’d be competing at 1* by April. I would then attend Florida State University on a full out-of-state tuition waiver scholarship, and everything would be picture-perfect.
Funny. In September, I was kicked while cleaning stalls, and was rewarded with a spiral fracture in my elbow. This injury not only required two surgeries and months of physical therapy, but completely mentally wrecked me. I was incredibly timid around horses for quite some time, and, obviously, this meant that I could not work daily in a professional eventing program. I moved back home and took my time re-building my confidence. I decided that Auburn University was a better fit for my personality, and withdrew from Florida State. I slowly began riding my own horse again, and eventually was able to be around unfamiliar horses, too. My spring competition season went well, until it crashed— my horse was diagnosed with grade-three ulcers, and I discovered that I was in the middle of an ulcerative colitis flare. I’m writing this towards the end of our recovery periods. Todd, my perfect horse, is almost through with his twenty-eight days of GastroGuard, and I am almost through with six weeks of prednisone. After about two months of inconsistent riding, we are starting to get ourselves into shape again. We are even entered for our first event back. I am extremely determined, and have a positive attitude about my entire situation now. However, it would be a complete lie if I said this has been my perspective throughout this year. I have held an embarrassing amount of pity parties. I am a planner— I like things to be black and white, and I like things to go my way. I like to be in control of every situation, and I am a total perfectionist. I am also an incredibly hard worker in all aspects of life. However, the combination of these things can be extremely deadly. We are taught that the harder we work, the more we want it, the more hours we put in, the better the results will be. It is crucial to understand that this is not always the case. There are some outside factors that, no matter what we do, we cannot control. This is especially true in equestrian sport. Horse and rider injuries, illness, financials, and simple bad luck—- these are all factors that are, to an extent, out of our control. However, what we can control is our mindsets. I had to learn this the hard way. I spent the majority of this year heavily depressed. I relied on medication and sleeping to get me through each day, and I felt as though I was just letting time pass me by. I kept thinking “why me”— I worked so incredibly hard, so why didn’t things go my way? Why couldn’t things just be simple? Why were my goals still so far out of reach? I didn’t deserve to be injured, I didn’t deserve to be chronically ill, my horse didn’t deserve ulcers. This thought process absolutely killed my desire to do legitimately anything. After months of being depressed, sick, and emotionally unavailable, I realized that I had to change something. I started to set smaller, short-term goals. Each day, I would do something for myself. This could be as simple as taking half an hour to read a book outside or going to the barn to brush my horse. I made each day more intentional, and tried to fill every hour with something productive. If I didn’t give myself time to think about my discontent, I wasn’t discontented (how incredibly revolutionary). Instead of basing my entire well-being on large long-term goals, I found happiness in smaller things. In physical therapy, I’d let myself feel successful for lifting small weights, instead of feeling hopeless that I can’t lift bigger ones. I’d feel grateful to be able to hack my horse, instead of feeling disappointed that he is not ready to jump yet. Forcing my mindset to change has benefitted me mentally, emotionally, and physically. I am not saying that long-term goals aren’t important. I still have them. I want to compete at my first FEI this fall. I want to maintain a 4.0 GPA throughout my time at Auburn. I want to attend medical school, and I want to be able to work enough hours to fund eventing throughout college. However, I no longer base my entire happiness on these goals. I find sustenance through smaller ordeals. Being able to create happiness through the smallest things will give me the right mindset to achieve my larger goals. There is no such thing as failure when you have the right mindset, only progress. I still have a long way to go emotionally and mentally— I will always be a perfectionist, so, to an extent, my happiness relies on success. However, I am working to change what my definition of success is.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorErin Lassere Archives
March 2021
Categories |