Get out of Your Head and into Your Mind: The Missing Piece to Winning at Barrel Racing Secrets the Pros Don't Tell You

by S W Johnson

Overview

Barrel racers, do you have a burning desire to be at the top of your game? Do you want success so bad you can taste it? Are you tired of wondering why it's so hard to make it? Are you done with making excuses and ready to do what it takes? You've trained so hard, what's left? In this book, find the secret to becoming a winning barrel racer. Top athletes and sports psychologists know that winning is as much mental as physical. Here is your road map to winning through mental toughness. Unleash the champion in you!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504396707
Publisher:	Balboa Press
Publication date:	04/10/2018
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	894,920
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Shelly was born into a horse legacy spanning generations. She grew up riding before she could walk. Her family bred and raised a small herd of horses. Thanks to the knowledge and skilled horsemanship of her father, she was always mounted on a great horse. She competed in the 4-H horse program throughout childhood as well as the National High School Rodeo Association. Shelly is a member of the Women's Professional Rodeo Association and is an active competitor in the Wilderness Circuit. She is a long-time horse breeder and trainer competing in futurities with her young horses as well as open jackpot barrel racing competitions. Her father, Lyman Watkins, was a great horseman and horse trainer with an intuitive understanding of horse behavior and what needed to be done to fix problems. He often successfully took on horses that other trainers had sent away, having advised their owners to send them for dog food because they were untrainable. Lyman miraculously turned them into reliable and useful mounts. Together with her older brother Dale, he developed and patented the Cloverleaf Bitless Bridle (R), and its training and use system which is laid out in the book Secrets That Tame the Wild Ones(c) authored by L. Dale Watkins. Although her father and brother have passed, their legacy lives on in Shelly's skill and knowledge that was taught to her by these great horsemen. She uses the Cloverleaf Bitless Bridle(R) system in her training program. Another of her older brothers, Tom Watkins, still custom manufactures a limited number of the bridles. Shelly has overcome several serious and debilitating accidents. She was told on more than one occasion she would likely never ride again and would certainly never compete at a pro level again. Shelly's mentally tough strategies brought her back from the depth of despair, and devastating injuries to once again compete as a professional. Shelly holds a Bachelor's degree in Nursing Science from the University of Utah, a Masters of Nursing Science degree from Grand Canyon University and is a certified Sports Hypnotist. She taught as an adjunct nursing professor at Mohave Community College and has spent more than 20 years caring for patients in the fields of geriatrics, hospice, and oncology. Her nursing work with cancer patients has given her great insight into the healing power of the mind. She has incorporated eastern healing techniques that utilize the powerful mind-body connection in her nursing and personal practices. She has studied and practiced intentional creation and manifestation for more than 25 years and has been a personal witness to miraculous events brought about by the power of belief Says Shelly, "Horses hold a profound healing power for me. I have taught and helped many students gain insights into themselves by looking at how their beliefs are manifested through their horses and how changing and strengthening those beliefs through the development of mental skills changes their horse's response. I want to help people, especially women, to become strong. Our equine partners reflect us, so we know where to begin the work." Her book Get out of Your Head and Into Your Mind is the first volume in 'The Mentally Tough Barrel Racer' series.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Becoming Mentally Tough

"Believing that the circumstances around him are stronger than the power within him, a man is defeated before the race is run." -Raymond Holliwell

What is mental toughness? How do we achieve it? Mental toughness is the process whereby we attain the ability to focus on the thoughts we desire rather than becoming distracted by events in our environment that we cannot control. Sound impossible? Well, fear not. Mental toughness is a skill, and like any skill, it can be developed.

When we think about developing a new physical skill, most of us understand that we are not going to be proficient at that skill immediately. Say you want to play the piano; you schedule a lesson and begin learning how to play. You wouldn't expect to be able to play a piece by Chopin within a few weeks of your first lesson.

We all have an understanding of the way physical skills are developed. We learn the basics, we practice the basics, and we become proficient at the basics. Once we have the basics mastered, we begin adding additional aspects slowly until we are able to perform advanced skills easily. Eventually, we don't have to think about every little muscle movement required to produce our intended outcomes.

Once subconscious action easily follows intention we have achieved muscle memory. We can then play a complex piece of music. Through focused practice, we develop confidence in our ability to place our fingers where they need to be to play the music. But, does having this skill allow us to perform flawlessly in front of an audience? Does the audience itself affect performance? Would we confidently play a sophisticated piece for a high school music class and yet struggle with the same arrangement before an audience of the world's top musicians?

Why is it so easy for some to perform flawlessly in any environment and so difficult for others? People who learn to play the piano attain varying levels of accomplishment. Some will play simple pieces for their own enjoyment. Some will play in social situations such as an accompanist to vocalists in schools or churches. Some may play keyboards in a band. Only a few will move to the elite level of a concert pianist. What is the difference in these levels of accomplishment? Quite simply, it is passion. This passion will ultimately drive the amount of practice and sacrifice required to reach the highest level of ability. Passion will motivate the student to conquer obstacles to achieve the highest goal. Passion will encourage the pursuit of knowledge to obtain the skills needed to perform at the elite level.

The thing most people don't consider when conceptualizing top athletes are the mental skills that were developed along with the physical abilities that allow them to be at the top. They have not just accomplished a task; they have attained a different state of being from the average person with a casual interest.

So, if mental toughness is a skill, necessary to perform at the peak of our abilities, where do we go to learn how to get better at it? Countless books describe the physical training, equipment, and horse power needed for a barrel racer to perform at the top, but few, if any, address developing and managing mental skills to enhance barrel racing performance at the highest level. Many athletes have the physical skills, equipment, and means to be among the elite but fail to perform at the best of their abilities under pressure. Why? Performance anxiety has prematurely stunted or halted the careers of many athletes. When their heads get in the way of their minds, the result is frustration and self-defeating behaviors.

In this book, I will refer to your "head" in the context of the analytical, black and white process we typically use to judge things as good or bad according to a set of acquired beliefs such as winning is a good thing and losing is a bad thing. Therefore, if I win I am good, if I lose, I am bad. Conversely, I will use the term "mind" to denote the effortless unconscious flow of action that does not require analysis to perform. An example would be moving your arm to open the refrigerator door when you intend to have some milk. Your brain fires the correct number of muscle fibers with the correct force to pull the door open simply by intending it to be so.

In his book, "With Winning in Mind," Olympic gold medalist Lanny Bassham credits a balanced "triad state" as the most influential factor in his training and attainment of Olympic gold. The triad state he is referring to is the interconnection of the conscious, the subconscious, and the self-image. Bassham emphasizes both training and competition strategies that build this balanced state and believes they are crucial for the elite athlete to achieve and maintain top performance.

When development in all three areas is constructed equally, harmony exists. When there is no conflict between the conscious thinking brain, the subconscious and the self-image elite skill mastery is possible. Action simply follows intention and automation is the result. Imbalance existing among any component of the triad state will cause an athlete to fall short of the success that is possible. The steps to achieve this balanced development will become more evident as we dig deeper into the chapters that follow.

Becoming mentally tough is a simple process, but simple does not mean easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it. In each new endeavor, there is a learning curve. This curve consists of a series of attempts and failures as the brain processes what works and doesn't work for the desired outcome. These attempts and failures are necessary! The brain must have the contrast of failure to understand and develop the correct action needed to move the skill to the subconscious, automatic level.

When learning to walk, a toddler first pulls himself up to a piece of furniture. He practices letting go momentarily. He tilts one way and then the other, grasping the furniture as he makes over-corrections (failures). His brain is learning by failure where to correct the posture to achieve balance. At first, the corrections are huge, resulting in his plopping down on his bottom over and over. As he continues to attempt balance, he refines his posture correction, narrowing it to a subtle waver. The failures soon become small but are still failures nonetheless. He makes nearly imperceptible corrections until he achieves a state of perfect balance. Next, he stands near the furniture, perfectly balanced with his toy in his hand. He begins to wave the toy around, as babies do, and to his astonishment, he is back on his bottom. Hmmm. New problem for the brain to solve: maintain balance while the arms are moving around. Well, you get the picture, on and on it goes with the brain logging attempts, failures, corrections, and new attempts until success is achieved.

Wow! How is it that as adults we forgot, overlooked, or completely missed the most basic concept of how the human brain learns? Through failure! We have allowed ourselves to become petrified of anyone seeing us fail. If we allow this fear to continue, how will we ever become great? Are you great at moving your arms and still maintaining your balance? Of course you are! When you were learning that skill, you were not concerned about how your failure appeared to other people. Mental toughness is a state of understanding and practicing techniques that get you out of your own way so your subconscious mind can effectively function as it was meant to. Now, we are at the root of the most basic understanding of our working brain: developing skill, whether physical or mental, takes time and failure! To learn, we must fail. We must develop a process to use the knowledge we gain through failure to improve our abilities. We will do this by keeping the failure focused on the task we are performing and separate it from the self-image. When attempting to develop new skills, especially mental skills, many will become discouraged and give up, saying it doesn't work, because the results are not immediate. Their development will be halted at some point by their lack of passion for what they are doing. The majority of competitors only like what they do, whereas athletes that are passionate about what they do become elite competitors. Regardless of whether you are an athlete at the like-what-you-do or the passionate-about-what-you-do level, advancing your mental toughness is a skill that will serve you well in all areas of your life. It is a skill worth developing and maintaining.

In this book, we will not focus on training barrel horses. There are many books in existence that lay out various techniques and viewpoints on training horses for the event of barrel racing. If you have sought out this book, you are obviously looking to improve yourself, which in turn will improve your performance no matter what training techniques you use with your horse. As you move through this book, you may discover that many obstacles you perceive as limitations in your horse are actually coming from you. We will examine this concept further in the chapter entitled "Accepting Responsibility."

Mental toughness is accomplished by changing your response to any situation from an environmental based response to a process based response. What I mean by this is, that you will stop anguishing over things that you have no way to control and begin to look for the best way to respond to the current situation as it is now. To simplify this process, it is vital to be open to increase your understanding of how the brain works to make you who you are. Who you are, on the subconscious level, makes it 'like you' to respond in a certain way. You must learn processes to change your unconscious perception of what is currently 'you' right now, to what you would like it to be. As you make the changes, you will be able to react and respond to your environment more consistently and predictably. The desired results will become duplicable.

We can't always control the environment or circumstances in which we compete. What we can control is the way we respond. The way we react can be learned as a process. Processes have steps to build skill. If you are trying to solve a complex math problem, you must use a specific process or the outcome will be incorrect. The order of operations used to solve the problem is the process. It also will be necessary to have some basic skill sets in place. You will need to have learned addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division concepts. Without these basic skills, the order of operations won't really matter much; you wouldn't be able to even start working on a solution.

Becoming a mentally tough competitor is about understanding and developing little mental skill sets that will enable you to solve problems. Even the smartest person in the world cannot shake your confidence that 2+2=4. You cannot be intimidated out of knowing that 2+2=4. The concept has repeatedly proved itself true. You do not have to second guess yourself or run to your calculator when your child asks you, "What is 2+2?" How would it feel to be that sure of yourself in competition? How great would it be to know that your confidence is unshakable, that you could always perform to the best of your ability regardless of who is there, who is watching, or how much money is on the line?

That confidence is the ultimate goal of becoming mentally tough. That's the skill we are going to build. We are going to acquire a specific set of keys to unlock the gate blocking the path to the secret that lies within.

CHAPTER 2

The Will (Or Will Not)

"An army of lions commanded by a deer will never be an army of lions." — Napoleon Bonaparte

How fierce is your will and under whose command? Your will is going to determine how far you get in life. Troubles and obstacles will always come up if you are forging forward into unknown territory. How could it be otherwise? If the things you seek were already known, there would be no growth, no forward movement. Life seeks expansion. The universe seeks expansion. There is no neutral.

Either we are going forward, or we are regressing. Our entire universe is in perpetual motion.

If a seed is planted in the earth, it seeks to expand. It pushes its roots out and down, its stem upward and outward. If it fails to germinate, it does not remain in the earth forever unchanged. It will shrivel, deteriorate, rot away, and turn to dust.

Your will is the deciding factor not only of the direction of your transformation, but it's width and breadth. Are you to become a mighty oak or a crumbling seed? It is said that Napoleon's will was like no other, he had developed an immense capacity for sustained concentration. When asked the reason for the sheer number of successful strategies, Napoleon stated, "I see only the objective; the obstacle must give way." Really, contemplate his statement, "I see only the objective, the obstacle must give way." What a beautifully simple summation of the power of the subconscious mind to bring to our awareness an answer to that which we seek.

We have only to believe that the answer will come, combined with a sustained concentration on the objective to realize anything we desire. The universe must reveal the answer. If you ask and believe you will receive a response, there is no other choice but to receive the answer. Universal law MUST deliver the answer. You will tremble and vibrate in anticipation of the moment when the answer will arrive. The strength of your will is the thing that maintains your focus on that moment and your awareness increases. The law of vibration will naturally attract the answer to you.

The only thing that can keep the answer from you is doubt. Little doubt, little delays, big doubt BIG delays. Doubt leads to fear, fear leads to anxiety. Anxiety vibrates in a negative flow; essentially closing down your awareness. Anxiety is the polar opposite of anticipation. Anticipation is a highly emotional state of something great about to happen. Anxiety has only one direction: "something bad is going to happen." Your focus has instantly been redirected to a feeling of lack with very strong emotion attached! What happens when we focus on lack?

Lack attracts lack with a VENGEANCE! First, one thing goes wrong and then the next. Doubt gets escalated into disbelief, "Why the heck did I ever think this thing could work ... I must be an idiot to be wasting my time with this!" Now, not only is lack involved, but mentally berating yourself has also struck a huge blow to the self-image. You have essentially increased the likelihood of repeating more behaviors that are self-defeating. You have subconsciously reinforced that it is "like you" to fail. There is no time or effort left over for awareness when lack and misfortune are causing a struggle just to get through the moment.

How could you possibly find an elusive answer if you have NO awareness? So you see how this thing could go south right when you were so close to a fantastic breakthrough. Your will MUST be strong to seek answers. There is a price to pay. You must accept that vigilant attention to the manner in which you "think" will require substantial effort. Mind powers do not dwell with the lazy man.

Say you were awarded a bank account with a very substantial amount of money that you were free to use as you wished. Only one stipulation exists: you are to stalk your thoughts daily. You are to be aware of every idea that takes you down a path of blame, anger, resentment, despair, unworthiness, guilt, doubt, judgment, fear, unfairness, unjustness, impossibility, unappreciated, unlovable, taken advantage of, hatred, rejection, helplessness, etc., etc. You are to immediately reject any such thought and replace it with a more positive angle. Let's say that each time you redirect your thoughts to positive energy flow, a few more dollars are added to your account. However, each time you allow negative thoughts of lack to linger, a few hundred dollars are deducted. A look at your account balance at the end of the week might be shocking. A few dollars going in and hundreds of thousands being deducted. You can bet your vigilance to eliminate those lazy, unchallenged lack-thoughts would be halted and turned around pretty quick. Your awareness would be dramatically increased.

Well, this is truly what is happening! And it actually does equate to dollars; in lost opportunities and poor outcomes caused by inattentive sloppy thinking. One does not become successful by doing certain things, but by doing things in a certain way. The first of these is gaining control of your mind by choosing which thoughts you will allow. You will do this by intentionally "stalking your thoughts." Just become aware. Notice what you are thinking.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Mind"
by .
Copyright © 2018 S. W. Johnson.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Becoming Mentally Tough, 1,
Chapter 2 The Will (Or Will Not), 6,
Chapter 3 Intentional Creation, 9,
Chapter 4 Embracing The Present Moment, 13,
Chapter 5 Become Humble To Become Powerful, 17,
Chapter 6 Creating Your Own Miracles, 22,
Chapter 7 Your Metamorphosis, 26,
Chapter 8 Does Your Mind Matter, 29,
Chapter 9 Self-Image, 32,
Chapter 10 Changing The Self-Image, 37,
Chapter 11 Reality ... Is It Real, 39,
Chapter 12 Skill Building – Break It Down For Confidence, 42,
Chapter 13 Giving It Your All — How Much Is Too Much, 48,
Chapter 14 Overcoming The Past – Preparing For The Future, 51,
Chapter 15 Practice Vs Competition, 56,
Chapter 16 Is It Luck? Creating Opportunity, 63,
Chapter 17 Avoiding Energy Vampires, 67,
Chapter 18 Attention/Intention, 75,
Chapter 19 What About Goals, 82,
Chapter 20 The Feeling Place, 85,
Chapter 21 Accepting Responsibility, 89,
Chapter 22 Knowledge – Your Superpower, 94,
Chapter 23 The Problem With Knowing Stuff, 96,
Chapter 24 Paradigms – What Are They, 99,
Chapter 25 Change Your Paradigm – Change Your Results, 102,
Chapter 26 Summary, 105,