Comments on: Raise Your Expectations

By: Kara-Lee Golota

Kara-Lee Golota — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:36:55 +0000

What a great message, Jerry. It’s so true that I’m afraid of making the mistake of being too direct line, forceful and damaging my rapport with my horse (and it my life of pushing myself too much); so it causes me to lower my expectations…. too much.

I’m going to play with raising my expectations of myself, and my horse; and apply Pete Rodda’s fabulous message of CELEBRATING my mistakes.

It’s so true that this is a journey of finding the balance between two extreme’s, and that we NEED to allow ourselves to EXPERIMENT in order to feel where that balance is in any given moment.

By: Angelina Schwebke

Angelina Schwebke — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 19:56:56 +0000

Great message! I grew up in the dysfunctional & contradictory message from my parents that they expected very little of me as a girl but in many areas perfection was their standard. Talk about a formula for frustration & going crazy. I realized the trap of perfectionism the hard way- I think perfectionism is taking expectations to an unreasonable extreme. The extreme on the other end of the continuum is having no expectations-staying in your comfort zone all the time and letting the horse stay in their comfort zone. Avoiding the things that challenge us.
But Jerry’s post reminds me of the importance of having expectations. It helps me a lot to write down expectations. This translates them into goals for me and helps them be more concrete & compelling. Then breaking them down into manageable steps.
For me the challenge is defining expectations that are realistic for me and the horses I work with but also expectations that will require stretching ourselves-getting out of our comfort zones to achieve, learn, grow…

By: Judy V

Judy V — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 02:30:51 +0000

This is interesting. I love the concept of having in my minds eye how my horse should look and work toward that image. WHat is harder is myself. my goal, particularly after the clinic and lessons with Jerry last weekend is to stop being such a straight line thinker. I wonder if my horse has an image in his mind about how I should look/act/feel? I need to set my expectation at the moment to be softer and ask “with a whisper and expect a shout”. I think the most difficult challenges are the hardest to see or feel. They are so slight!

By: Sharon France

Sharon France — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:42:20 +0000

I must have been ‘drawn’ to read this post Jerry – thanks so much for sharing it with us. All these little seeds are being planted and slowly impinging upon my psyche.

By: Colleen S.

Colleen S. — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 14:47:54 +0000

This advice provided by Pat Parelli to you, Jerry, resonates with me because this past year my gelding has not had a pleasant look on his face when he’s with me. He looks dull and blah blah. He comes up to me in pasture and follows me and acts like he REALLY appreciates me—but if pasture mates take off or snort he’s gone. He also snorts alot when I ride him. I’ve been doing Parelli with him for 4 years, we’re level 3 untested. But, this is why your message resonates. This horse has had a lot of Parelli attention. He is awesome at liberty. He does patterns, and beautiful 7 games on 22 ft line. He does 45 ft line games if he’s been worked with regularly. But this past year I have noticed he finds our play sessions and riding boring. Yesterday, he looked straight at me, when I asked for the circling game and reared up and went the other way. Man was I shocked. This horse does liberty in yard with no halter. So, I read this as . . . you’re boring, boring, boring. He is a LB introvert (but beautiful active mover sometimes). He is also needy and subservient to herd mates. What I don’t know is what to do. I guess I need to raise expectations, but don’t know where to go. Thought I was doing so well, but think when I got ET to a certain levell, and I was so awed by his liberty, that I just stopped doing anything else. I think I need help.

By: Heidi

Heidi — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:46:50 +0000

Just received your e-mail and wanted to thank you for the lovely way you write and inspire. I came to your web site to write a comment and ended up rereading all your blogs and shed a few tears on the wonderful dressage video.
Anyways gave me a lot to think about Know that I have given up a bit, but also know my expectations are pretty low right now too. Thanks for sharing, really enjoyed your thoughts and feelings, Heidi

By: Maxine Easey

Maxine Easey — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 06:50:39 +0000

Jerry that’s a brilliant story and resonates clearly with me. We had a clinic with Ali Jones some years ago and the theme for day 2 was “Expect more”. Perhaps she had spent the previous month with Pat too !

She enabled me to see the difference between “stretching” my horse and myself to expand our comfort zone and enhance our abilities and develop our relationship and “pushing” us so that we felt too far outside of it.

Since then I’ve overcome huge difficulties and felt empowered to do – and stretch for – more and more.

Thanks for sharing this further wisdom with us !

Cheers
Max

By: Elisabeth

Elisabeth — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:55:04 +0000

I really appreciate your blog. It`s always something interesting in it and I´m looking forward for the next contribution.Thank you very much for sharing!

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:42:22 +0000

I have been enjoying your themes and presentation. Thank you for the gentle push to keep moving forward.

By: Janet Evans

Janet Evans — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:30:59 +0000

How true this is, managing my expectations will become yet another savvy arrow to success. Thank you Jerry.