I’m just home off the back of two Equiteam Confidence Camps after a winter of not really socialising or mixing with too many people. The lovely community in EquiTeam Connected helped me to stay more socially connected than I realised which meant I definitely didn’t get my usual April overwhelm.
As a host I am lucky that I get to chat to and listen to people talking during and after their lessons as they dissect and summarise their sessions in detail. I hadn’t really thought about it much until today when I read a post in the group about focusing on the one thing that went wrong and not mention everything that did go right, which started me thinking about several different things.
- Negativity can be contagious
- People can be inspiring
Negativity
We all know that watching the news and seeing negative things on social media can affect our mental health, but we are also very sensitive to negative talk from our friends without even noticing.
If one person says – ‘Oh I did this wrong in that round’ or ‘I missed a fence out’ etc, we quickly agree and tell them something negative that we have done. In our heads we probably start this by thinking we are making them feel better – that they are not alone. But this is the beginning of our brains focusing on the negatives. Sometimes it is enough to start the ‘what ifs’ in our brains which can quickly spiral out of control.
It is ok to make others feel better but it’s much better to get them to focus on what they did well, rather than find your own negative.
I know that this is something that really impacted our EquiTeam coach Liz at our recent April camps, and she had a lot more to say on the matter in a recent blog – Negative Nelly or Positive Polly.
Inspiration
A few people will have heard me talk about my friend who ran a marathon last week. This is something that I don’t have the time or desire to achieve myself, but it really highlighted to me the power of mindset. She set a goal and worked her bum off to achieve it. Losing three stone to run a blooming long way while juggling an emotionally challenging job and all the other life stuff is very incredible.
She has far surpassed me on my own weight loss and fitness journey, and there have been times when I have felt disillusioned by my own efforts (maybe I should have set a marathon goal then I would have been scared enough to stick to the healthy eating!). But even though my weight loss has stalled a bit, she has inspired me to kick myself up the bum and start again.
It would have been easy to stop and compare myself to her and feel negative that I haven’t got to the same place that my friend has in the same time, but instead of feeling negative I feel super proud of her and very inspired.
Losing weight as you get older definitely gets harder and the more research I do into food, nutrition and weight loss, the more complicated it seems. Yes – there is an element that more calories out and less calories in does have an effect, but it seems that our guts are way more individual than that which is why certain ‘diets’ work really well for some people and not at all for others.
As Lauren from Equestrian Fitness Scotland says – you can’t out train a bad diet. The key is finding what works for you and what is sustainable. I read this article which has some great tips about improving our gut health – https://www.thebodycoach.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-gut-health/
Finding the positives
On a totally different note, I recently went to a Digital Women’s Event and the title of the last session was ‘How to Sparkle Your Way to Success in Any Climate’ I must admit – I thought it was NOT going to be my cup of tea… How wrong I was – onto the stage came this lady in a striking red jump suit who shared her incredible story about how following a stroke, she now suffers from amnesia and only has memories from the last four year. She has turned this into a positive and is living her absolutely best life and loving every second of it. Self-belief and confidence is an incredibly powerful tool if you can harness it to work with you.
My point from all of this is you have to do what works for you. With weight loss, fitness and in your riding you need to look for the inspiration and work out what you really want and how you are going to achieve it. We only have one shot at life, so we really should give it our best go.
Although I was inspired by Carol Pyke and her ‘Sparkle’ I am not going to start wearing a red jump suit and owning a room, but I do think of her every day and think of what my strengths are and focus on those. I am not going to run a marathon, but I am going to eat better, move more and look after my body and mind in a more positive way.
You can be inspired by the people who are out achieving what you dream of doing, but just remember to listen to their story too – often the journey is the inspiring part.
