Be Kind Month: Fear of Failure

With BD Be Kind month launched last week at the Winters, we wanted to address an important topic - failure. 

Whether at the Winter Championships or later in the year, plenty of members will be experiencing their first ever championship, reaching for great goals and setting their hopes high. Remember that horses aren’t perfectly programmed dressage machines and on the day... anything can happen. Fear of failure is something we all experience and in this piece Andrea Oakes looks at how to enjoy the ‘journey’ as well as the end goal.

Don’t let anything hold you back, go for gold. When Sophie Palmer was producing her young horse, she found herself suffering from an unexpected form of anxiety. “Not only was he the youngest horse I’d ever owned, but I’d never before had a blank canvas,” explains Sophie, who bought Moylaw Alawhatsit, known as Goose, as a four-year-old. “Previous horses had been ‘ready-made’ and I just had to learn to ride them. I was so worried about ruining Goose or doing too much, too young, with him. I was afraid of letting him down.”

Fear of failure can take many forms, from the sense that you’re squandering a horse’s potential to the feeling of disappointing owners, coaches or parents. You may even be afraid to compete in case you fail to meet your own exacting standards.

According to chartered sport psychologist Jo Davies (jdpsychology.co.uk), this mindset can arise under the pressure of expectations that we consider greater than our capabilities or out of our control.

“We often use the word ‘should’: we own a smart young horse that should do well, for example, or we’re riding a schoolmaster that should be winning at a certain level,” she says. “But there’s danger in measuring success through things we can’t control, such as placings or percentage scores. It’s a slippery
slope to set these expectations for ourselves, or others.”

Signs that indicate a fear of failure include a lack of self-confidence, a reluctance to try new things or a tendency to switch to autopilot under pressure and ride ineffectively. You might procrastinate or start to self-sabotage, where you worry so much about something that you decide not to do it at all.

What’s the solution? “Start by asking yourself why you ride and compete, and what you want to get from the sport, says Jo. “This could be enoyment,
learning or achieving harmony with the horse. The downside of expectation is that it can undermine what’s really important, such as the sense of personal progress.

“Reflect on what you consider as success or failure," she continues, pointing out that there’s more to life than win or lose. “Many people view it as black and white, but there may be more personal measures of success that you can take care of.

“Try focusing on outcome-based goals, are you setting yourself up to fail instead, identify some process goals’ that you can look after to ride a good test such as maintaining a good rhythm in the trot work, for example, or keeping the horse more through’. These goals are best set in conjunction with your coach and should be shared with your support team, so everyone is aware of your aims and you don’t have to worry about impressing people.

“You’re not sacrificing your end goal, because you may still be able to achieve that good percentage,” adds Jo. “You’re ust looking after what you can control. The nature of dressage means that you’re ultimately  working towards certain scores for qualification. Ironically, you may need to take the pressure off the score to focus on the ingredients that make a great test.” 

Many of us are affected by our own inner critic’, a characteristic of perfectionism.

“We all have some traits of perfectionism but certain people have a more ‘all or nothing’ rigidity to the idea of success,” explains Jo. “They tend to be results driven, setting themselves high targets and feeling a greater sense of failure if things don’t go to plan.

“It can help to review training and competing in a more constructive way that recognises the positives,” she adds. “Try keeping a diary, otting down a
bullet point or two about how you’ve progressed or a nugget or advice from your trainer. This not only helps learning and focus but boosts confidence and
the belief that you’re progressing along a trajectory.

“Think about how to evaluate progress or performance, perhaps by running through a video so your coach can offer feedback,” says Jo. 

“Maybe something felt like a failure in your mind, but by unpicking it you can identify and develop areas for improvement. While homework can bring about a longer time change in mindset, old habits can pop up in the heat of the moment.

“The mind can focus on distracting thoughts or take us to the uncontrollable elements,” says Jo, who adds that the warmup ring is typically where fear of failure makes an unwelcome reappearance. “Asking yourself What can take care of’ is usually enough to bring your focus back to the here and now and restore cool, calm collection.

Article originally published in March 2022 
© British Dressage Magazine 
Author: Andrea Oakes