When I was showing horses and competing we talked a lot about not trying too hard or beating yourself when you were in the show pen.
Trying to hard would cause you to overthink everything. Pretty soon sitting up tall looked like sitting up so tall that your whole body tightened, or backing up became aggressive and fast instead of soft and flowing.
Trying too hard comes from a lack of confidence. In life it shows up like this:
Perfectionism – when you believe that something is a reflection of you, you need it to be perfect in every way you can muster and you will exert yourself to the point of absolute exhaustion trying to achieve it.
Pleasing Others – you start looking for other people’s validation and approval to try to find your own self worth.
Self Doubt – you can’t make a decision for yourself
Over Thinking – you work off of your own steam believing you have to think of everything and figure it all out with your brains.
Trying to do your best doesn’t mean trying your hardest. There is a difference, and it’s all in how it manifests.
It’s great to do your best, and to be awesome. Some days your best is taking the world by storm, other days your best is staying in bed and watching movies. Either way if it’s your best, then that’s awesome.
Trying your hardest is hard. We push too much, we try to force things, and we wear ourselves out.
We are almost at the end of the first quarter of 2018, and I have spent almost all of it trying my hardest.
Trying your hardest comes from ego.
It’s trying to prove you are good enough instead of accepting yourself as enough.
It causes tremendous tension in your body and you begin to have headaches, foggy brain, and illness pops up.
It’s so much easier to allow yourself the space to simply do your best.
It’s a journey to change the thought patterns and belief behind all of the trying. You need to consistently remind yourself to stop obsessing, to start listening to yourself, and to relax.
It’s difficult to switch and understand that you don’t have to do everything on your own. You are safe, you are supported, and if you keep moving forward you will receive the guidance you need, but it’s possible if you open yourself up to it.
When I was showing I simply needed to remind myself that I knew how to ride a horse and that’s all I needed to go and do.
We know how to do life, and it’s much easier when we don’t make the easy things hard.
Maybe it would help if we continuously asked ourselves “what would this look like if it were easy?”