You only have to believe for two minutes

Everyone has nerves and everyone wants to do well. These feelings aren’t unique. Something I have long told myself when I’m headed down the chute to the show ring and I’m experiencing these feelings is, “You only have to believe for two minutes.”

This often helps me get on a good enough canter. When I’m nervous I want to under-do things, like putting my leg on and riding forward, so I tell myself it’s only two minutes from when you go in to when you leave. Believe you can for those two minutes. And once you get going you can really only think of the moment instead of the bigger task, and before you know it the two minutes are up and you’ve made it.

Legendary record executive Jimmy Iovine says, “Make fear a tail wind instead of a head wind.” And I agree as a life theory, but putting it into practice in the moment isn’t just that simple, but the two-minute rule is a pretty good way to start.

A few sayings related to this that inspire me:

“If you wanna fly, you gotta give up the shit that weighs you down.”

Toni Morrison

“The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice that which we are for what we could become.”

Charles Frederic Dubois

“Unless you try something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.”

Mark Twain