Biggest Best Life

What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid? Lessons From Getting Back in the Saddle

• Lauren Chapnick • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Getting back in the saddle has taught me two profound life lessons that apply to any challenge or dream we pursue. These simple but powerful insights emerged from my return to horseback riding as an adult, where I found myself facing fears I never had as a child.

• "Look where you want to go" - a fundamental rule of horseback riding that became an epiphany about life direction
• Without a clear vision of your destination, taking the first step toward your goals becomes impossible
• Setting your life's GPS requires knowing your destination before you can determine your route
• Fear is inevitable when making changes or taking risks, but we can choose to act despite it
• The transformative question: "What would I do if I wasn't afraid?"
• Letting go of fear creates physical and mental freedom to perform better
• Childhood fearlessness comes from not overthinking risks or consequences
• Acting "as if" you weren't afraid can transform your experience and results

Text BESTLIFE to 833-681-6463 to get my weekly dose of motivation straight to your phone. Make it an awesome day! 

Visit laurenchapnick.com or biggestbestlife.com to learn more about Lauren.


Announcer:

Welcome to Biggest, Best Life, the podcast that dares you to dream big, live louder and step fully into the rock star life you are made for. You're not too late, You're right on time and we're just getting started. Here's your host, Lauren Chapnick.

Lauren Chapnick:

Lauren Chapnick. Hey everybody, welcome back Lauren Chapnick here and you are listening to Biggest, best Life. This is the podcast that truly hands you the permission slip and gives you that kick in the butt that you need to take action to make big, bold changes in your life. Today it's just you and me having a conversation, and I want to share two lessons that I have learned recently from getting back in the saddle again. Literally, I am riding horses again.

Lauren Chapnick:

I grew up riding horses. It was something I loved. I was so passionate about it and I was pretty good. But I'm realizing now I think I was good because I was fearless. I had no inhibitions.

Lauren Chapnick:

You don't think about what can possibly happen, what could go wrong when you're that young. You are just having a great time. You're riding this horse, you're getting better, you're learning how to do things you've never done before and it's fun and that's what we want to do as adults too. But then we have all of these fears that come in our way right, especially if you happen to be an emergency room nurse, like I am, and you've seen what can happen. I've seen the injuries. You can use your imagination. People fall off horses and bad things happen, and I've seen it, but I wanted to do it anyway and it was something that I wanted to share with my daughters They've recently gotten into riding as well and it's something that we share. And it's really my time each week to practice self-care and be in this other, alternate universe where I'm bonding with this animal and I love it so much. When you are on a horse, you literally have to communicate with that horse, with your body. It really is a meditation. You can't be thinking about really anything else, you can't be distracted or you are not going to be able to tell the horse what to do. You are really moving that animal with your body and with your mind. You have to be in tune with that animal and that's why I love it just so much. But here are the two things that I've learned.

Lauren Chapnick:

I was pretty petrified at first. I didn't think I would be, but once I got up there it kind of dawned on me. I'm pretty far to the ground, I'm wearing a helmet, but I've seen what can happen and I'm a little freaked out right now. You know, and we started slow and and we started learning all the basics again, because your body remembers certain things, but I forgot a lot. It's it's been several years and this is what my teacher said years.

Lauren Chapnick:

And this is what my teacher said look where you want to go. That's one of the first rules of horseback riding is you're steering the horse with your body. But if you're looking down, if you're trying to adjust your reins, or you're looking away, or if you're not looking in the direction where you want the horse to go, the horse is not going to go there. And I heard her say that and I I followed, I did what she was asking me to do. But you're doing all these things at once, right, you're remembering how to hold your hands and how to sit and how to hold your body. There's so much going on at once and those moments where it all clicks, it feels great.

Lauren Chapnick:

But that didn't happen for me for a while, because it was like a beginner starting over again and she kept saying look where you want to go, look where you want to go. But it kind of just honestly, I heard it and it went over my head because I was just so focused on other things and I was tense, I was scared and last week I was watching one of my daughter's lessons my youngest daughter and she's six, but she's incredibly focused when it comes to horseback riding. It's great to see her because sometimes in other aspects of her life she's all over the place, but she loves horseback riding so much and she's so attentive, but she's still six. So she was daydreaming a little bit, horseback riding so much and she's so attentive, but she's still sick. So she was daydreaming a little bit and our instructor, stash, says to her look where you want to go. And it just clicked. It just clicked. For me it was. It was like an epiphany. It was like, of course, look where you want to go, not just in horseback riding, but in your life. You got to look where you want to go, because if you don't have a vision, a clear vision for where you want to go, who you want to be, how can you possibly take that first step? Look where you want to go. If you don't set your GPS in your car and you're just wandering, you're never going to get where you want to go. You have to put in an address, at least a town. Look where you want to go, visualize who you want to be, visualize the life that you want to be, visualize the life that you want to have and then say to yourself what is the first thing I must do today, right now, to get there? Look where you want to go. So that's number one.

Lauren Chapnick:

The second lesson that I learned is about fear and being scared. And I that's what this podcast is about. It's about being afraid and doing the thing anyway. I'm scared. You're never going to not be scared to make a change. You're, I'm never going to not be a little bit afraid to get on that horse. There's always going to be some sort of risk when I get into that saddle or when I watch my daughters get into that saddle, but the lessons that they're learning and the experience that they're having makes it so worth it. And we take every precaution that we can to stay safe. We learn how to mitigate that risk as best as we can, but we're not going to hold back because we're afraid of what could possibly happen. We're not going to hold ourselves back from life experiences and things that we want because we're afraid. So this phrase popped into my mind what would I do if I wasn't afraid?

Lauren Chapnick:

I took a lesson on Monday with my favorite horse. His name is Felix. He is a cow horse, as I call him. It's actually called a Pinto, I believe, which is like they have spots. He literally looks like a cow, but he's a horse. I love him, he's such a good boy. And, felix, he's a great horse, but he's freaking huge right and I was a little afraid to get on him. I got on him anyway and I thought what would I do if I wasn't afraid? How would I ride if I wasn't afraid?

Lauren Chapnick:

I found a picture recently of when I was nine and I was riding a horse and I looked at my face and my face had no fear. No fear, it was just genuine happiness. I was so excited to be on that. It was a pony. I was so excited to be on that pony and I thought, okay, lauren, you could do this lesson today with that fear that's inside of you and hold yourself back a little bit, or you could truly make the decision to let go, because whatever's going to happen is going to happen. If this horse is going to throw me off, it's going to throw me off, and these horses that they put you on they're lesson horses. They they're pretty bomb proof, meaning they're not going to just spook at the most random thing. They're not going to. They don't have a history of hurting people, but there's still a wild animal. Anything can happen.

Lauren Chapnick:

But I just thought, okay, what would you do if you weren't afraid? How would you ride if you weren't afraid? And I took a breath and I just let all of that go and have a really focused, fun ride, a fearless ride. And I let it go and I pretended I acted as if I said what would I do if I weren't afraid? And I will tell you, it was awesome. It was such a good lesson, just being relaxed, everything clicked. I was able to maintain my trot and my canter for longer. I didn't feel like I was flopping all over the place because my body wasn't tense, I just eased into it.

Lauren Chapnick:

And it's sort of like that, one of my four questions who do you want to be? And act as if it's related to that, but it's a little different. It's what would I do if I weren't afraid? And I did it and it was so much better.

Lauren Chapnick:

And I thought this doesn't just apply to riding Felix today. This applies to everything. It applies to this podcast and asking to speak to people who maybe, in the back of my mind, I might think why would they want to talk to me. You know what? What would I do if I weren't afraid? I would ask them anyway. What would you do if I weren't afraid? I would ask them anyway. What would you do if you weren't afraid? What is the thing that you've been holding back on and what would you do if you weren't afraid? So that'll do it for today. The two lessons, the two takeaways that I have learned from getting back in the saddle are look where you want to go and what would you do if you weren't afraid. If you like what you're hearing, please give us a follow, a rating, a review. I'll see you the next time. Make it an awesome day. Bye-bye.

Announcer:

Thanks for tuning in to Biggest Best Life. If today lit a fire in you, follow, review and share it with someone who needs the spark, and remember to text BESTLIFE one word to 833-681-6463 to get Lauren's weekly dose of motivation straight to your phone. Now go out there, live boldly, love wildly and never settle for less than your biggest best life.