Confidence

Last night I lay in bed and pondered how I got to where I'm at.  I was thinking about Ryder.  He'd been sick and was showing signs of improvement.  Because he'd been sick I had brought all the dogs into my room, to make it easier to monitor him and take him out if needed.  (And boy, have we had a few sleepless nights!)  I'm not sure if it was something he ate or a bug, but a trip into the vet and some meds have made a world of difference.

I was laying there thinking about what a nice fellow he is.  And I was wondering why I'm not chomping at the bit to work him.  He really is astoundingly easy to train.  I was wondering why with FarmFair around the corner I'm not eagerly anticipating watching the dogs go.  There was a point in time when I would have lived and died by these events.  So what's changed?  With Ryder, I know that I don't have the confidence to train him.  I don't trust myself to make the right decisions.  I don't trust myself to do the caliber of job he deserves.  I get locked into paranoia over what the correct next step is in his training progression.

I lay there wondering what has caused this.  I certainly wasn't always like this.  I used to overflow with confidence and an unshakeable belief in my abilities.  Take the horses for example.  I used to happily hop on anything.  Now, even though I know I have the ability to handle what they may toss my way I'm scared.  Roxy- case in point.  She didn't do anything I wasn't able to ride.  Not once was I in danger of falling off.  But I was terrified to get on her.  It really doesn't make sense.  I know I haven't been as confident after my accident.  But that was over 10 years ago!  I've rode lot's since then.

So the question of the day is - if you know your confidence has fled, how do you go about getting it back?