We live in a goal oriented society. I grew up being told how important it was to set and achieve goals in order to be successful in life. Unfortunately I wasn’t shown how to effectively achieve a goal. At times I knew the end game I wanted, but how the heck to get there? It wasn’t until I started working with horses 20 years ago that I really begun to understand the importance of breaking down goals into small pieces and focusing on the outcome rather than getting lost in the confusion and distraction of how to achieve it.

Horses don’t actually care about the end goal. They care about the here and now. We can take them to an end goal but not immediately. Building blocks and foundations need to be laid and small steps taken. In a very real, experiential way, horse behaviour shows us how easily we can misdirect our energy (and efforts) by focusing on the how instead of the what.

When ever I become frustrated in an interaction with a horse it is because I am getting up in the how and have lost sight of the what (end goal). This always causes me to misdirect my efforts and misalign my energy. It’s easy to misdirect energy but this leads to missed opportunities. Energy, when focused, is very powerful and working with horses show us how powerful because they are large, powerful animals. When we scatter our energy our results will be scattered. By focusing on each small piece, one at a time, and letting go of emotional attachment to exact outcomes we create, we flow, we grow.