The Success Cycle

The cycle of success goes like this. Try, fail, learn, improve, repeat. My teacher, Mrs. Nerswick, shared this cycle with me and it made me realize that no matter how bad it may be, there is a way out and you will grow because of it.

After some hard work, we eventually ended on the numbers, and this shows how failure actually helped me. Recently, we ventured out to our first show of the season, and it just wasn’t right. Long story short, I fell off (on cross country, of course!). I got ahead of myself, so in turn got a wakeup call. I needed this fall AND failure to teach me! I went home, worked very hard to better my riding, physically, and mentally. At the time, I was mad at myself and the world for that fall, but now I am so thankful for it. I look at it as an opportunity to learn something. After this major failure, I would now know exactly what I needed to work on.

Ash and Taleen

As riders, we sometimes tend get stuck in the “fail” part of the cycle of success. Naturally, humans look at failures as bad things. We exclude them from social media posts, we say it was a bad day and although it might have been a bad day, something was learned.

My horse, Sir Sebastian (aka Ash), is an OTTB, and he is 8 years old. I still consider him green, even though he’s eight. With the help of my trainer, Doreen Durr,we have taken his training pretty slow and easy. I bought him with the basics already taught, so it was my job to teach him from there. I’ve had him for a little over a year, and boy let me tell you, it's been one heck of a ride. We didn’t complete our first couple of shows, cross country was always biting us in the butt!

Failures are just another step in the cycle of success. The more important thing is, after failing, we learn. From there we improve greatly because of the failure and what we took away from the experience. And of course, after that, we continue in the cycle. Getting discouraged about failures is a waste of time and here’s why: It’s just one step closer to learning, improving, and getting better. Failures are ok. If anything, failures are great things. They show that you are working hard as well as growing. In our riding, we do fail. Don’t stop in the middle of the cycle. Don’t get down on yourself for failing. Think of what you gained. Failure is just one step in the cycle. If you don’t try, you don’t fail, you don’t learn, and so you don’t improve. As Robert F. Kennedy said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” Stay determined and keep going through the failures, focus on what you learn from them, and look forward to making more mistakes.