No matter who you are or what you do, at some point in life you are going to feel like an imposter. We work so hard everyday to achieve all the goals we set for ourselves but when we have a hard day or maybe don’t complete the goal it can feel like maybe we are not meant to achieve the goal.
Ever since I was a little girl I have had horses in my life. I would sit in class and dream about the day I had my own and how we would run like the wind. We would win every event that we entered. Well now i'm 20 years old and that's not quite reality. I struggle a lot with setting goals that I feel like I can actually achieve and with that comes feelings of imposter. I always thought I was just meant to be a barrel racer, that was until I found that I have a gift of being able to feel, see, and listen to what a horse is asking of me. I now have been called to the training side of performance horses. But even though I feel it in my soul that this is the right path for me, when the bad days come they come hard. Packing all the imposter syndrome they can.
The day when my favorite colt started acting up out of nowhere, it makes me feel like I have never ridden a day in my life when the imposter feelings are at their height for me. I have been battling these feelings inside for a long time. But the other day I got the chance to ride a colt that's in training with a lady that I look up to. When I got on the colt I immediately felt like I belonged which is a new feeling to me getting on someone else's horse. I rode the colt for about 20 min while the woman that I have looked up to for so long gave me some reassuring tips to remind me that I knew what I was doing. After that ride I could wipe the smile off my face. With just that 20min. All the feelings of imposter syndrome were gone. The next day I got back on my horses and was riding like a brand new person.
My takeaway here is that in order to be successful in whatever your goals are in life, you need to surround yourself with the right people. The people who can see your internal struggle and push you to see your greatness when you think there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
Stay Spiffy, Sami Russell