Am I Good Enough?

A woman I know often feels like she comes up short in her horse program.

She loves her horses, but thinks her horses are just ok, and that her riding isn’t good enough (and likely never will be), and that she doesn’t have enough time, money, or friends in the horse world.

While that sounds a bit dire, she’s certainly not alone. Dare I say, many of us feel some version of the same, to some degree.

It’s called scarcity. It’s characterized by the belief that who we are and what we have are never enough, and that we need something more from the outside world to come to us or to happen to be fulfilled.

The biggest challenge is that a scarcity mindset causes us to compare ourselves to others and overlook our unique qualities. If that ‘more’ does come to us in some form from the outside, it’s likely still not enough.

Scarcity is insatiable and toxic.

In the horse world, we may think we need to be a better rider because so-and-so person is at a higher level. Or, if we compete and win a big championship, in our minds, we think it was a fluke, so we need to win more classes to prove we’re the real deal.

When it comes to learning new skills with our horses, one way scarcity might manifest is in the desire to be ‘fixed’ by someone or something else.

If we go to a clinic and hear something we’ve understood before, we might think we already know how to do that, but what we know is the what, not the how. We confuse knowledge with learning.

In a scarcity mindset, we want to explore NEW ideas to develop our skills, rather than delve deeper into the nuances, sequences, and rhythms of fundamentals we’re familiar with.

New strategies and concepts are good, but in their own time. There’s an order and a process to learning. First comes getting solid with what comes first.

There’s a concept that’s the opposite of scarcity. It’s called ‘sufficiency’. The idea is that when we want to expand anything, an excellent strategy is to go deeper with what we already have.

In the currently available “You Hold the Reins” mini-podcast series, Dr. Stephanie Burns, an expert in adult learning, offers a glimpse into how the adult human brain works, including learning new skills and getting unstuck with skills you struggle with.

She helps us understand that there’s so much we can do to learn more effectively. Plus, it’s essential for efficient and effective learning.

Learning requires taking knowledge (information/understanding) and practicing it in specific ways. This is work typically done between lessons and without the presence of instructors, for example.

We do ‘hold the reins’ to advancing our skills in the most efficient and effective ways possible – and it does require knowing how to study skills on our own – and then doing it!.

Stephanie’s teaching on ‘deep learning’ has brought to light a multitude of multidimensional concepts about adult learning and what’s possible for us.

In podcast two, for example, she explains the necessity for clarity, breaking things down, and repetition in more detail.

I was coaching someone recently, and I just kept hearing Stephanie’s words about deep learning in my mind.

I was thinking about how I could break down the ideas I was sharing even more, and also how I could make it meaningful to my student and help her do the same when she wasn’t with me.

It was as if a brick hit me, highlighting the importance of these deep learning concepts and how they need to be applied. As I thought about ‘how’ to use them, a new whole world of clarity, creativity, and design opened up.

Because of what Stephanie teaches and how she’s teaching it, she’s helped me ‘go deeper’ – and boy, there’s a lot of room there to expand. 😊

Dr. Burns calls learning our superpower. It’s not a talent given to some and not others. We just need to know how to do our part. That’s up to us.

The three You Hold the Reins mini-podcasts will be available for another week.

If you haven’t signed up to hear them (they’re free), I recommend doing so soon! You won’t regret it! There’s so much you can do to help yourself. You just need to know how and then follow through.

I’m thrilled to be learning this information for myself. To me, it’s life-changing.

It opens doors to learning whatever you want to learn by doing what you do for yourself.

Click here for the You Hold the Reins mini-podcasts series.

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