Hello Super Riders!

I trust you are enjoying the warmer weather and excited for the return of daylight saving time earlier this month!

This month I want to discuss the quote.

Courage is to be scared to death, but saddle anyway.

For me, this is the essence of overcoming fear and achieving the success you want as a cyclist and in life.

You don’t get over fear. You manage it. People come to me in fear and ask me to remove it, and I say why? Fear is not bad! Fear is just a marker, a signal to tell you that you are doing something outside of your comfort zone. Why would I eliminate something so powerful?

What I will do is change your relationship with fear. So you love it and use it as a signal to act, not paralyze yourself in inaction. People tell me that they will do something when the fear is gone. BUT the only way to make the fear go away is to DO IT!

This caught my attention even more this week. I had imported a new 3 year old horse from Germany and it had finally arrived this week. He did not know the horse very well as he had only ridden it twice in Europe 3 months ago. She had been in quarantine for 6 weeks, so she had a bit of free time, and it had only been broken a month before she bought it.

He wanted to ride it the day after he arrived and it was windy. Really windy. Such a new place, new rider, wind, 6 weeks off, young horse. I was affraid. Of course I did! My instinct was that this was a new situation, in which I could not guarantee my safety, so of course the fear response kicked in. BUT the difference is, I knew I HAD to ride that day. And I rode. And she was amazing. So not only was I rewarded with a good trip, I also received the knowledge that she would be fine in a new environment that she does not know, such as a new competition venue, and if there were horrible gale force weather. wind and rain, it would be fine and I can focus on doing our best in the sand.

He wouldn’t have had all those great rewards if he’d let fear win. Fear wants to keep us small, fear wants to keep us safe, but we don’t make it in that safe comfort zone. We don’t get great rewards when we try to play safely.

The only way to achieve your goals and achieve success is to face fear and do what scares us. This is why the quote is so powerful. It teaches you to expect some kind of feeling or emotion when you go to do something, but that doesn’t mean you stop. It means you’re leaving. I always say that fear is my green light to go. Fear is my body telling me that this is the next step to take.

Now, of course, you must be sensitive. You shouldn’t get on crazy horses that have a proven history of hurting you, you should take all the precautions you can to ensure your safety, but then you should saddle up, take action, and go to achieve your goals.

I understand that it is not as easy as saying like Nike says: “Do it”. Our brains and especially our unconscious mind can be tricky, as their number one job at all times is to preserve life at all costs. This is where you really need to get to the reality of the situation and determine if there is a real threat. Then second, find out ‘how’ you are afraid and manipulate the images you show, the words you say to yourself, and the strategies you employ.

Strategies are really important when you play with fear. I always find that people who are allowing fear to take over have a different strategy when driving compared to the one they use when they think everything is okay. So of course … If you do something different, you will get a different result. The key is to make sure you use the strategy that works so that you can overcome your fear and achieve the goals that you want.

For your success,

Natasha