Balancing Principles, Purpose and Timelines

   First, I have to warn you that by no means have I balanced these three! However, they have been on the top of my mind lately and have caused me to lick and chew a TON. The clever side of my brain quickly came up with a solution: If there were only two I would be fine - perhaps I should bring this to Pat's attention and get him to change the saying :-) Take Principles and Timelines for instance, perfect, no problem, set a goal and reach it with the dignity of the horse foremost. Now take Principles and Purpose, "great" take all the time it takes, no pressure, perfect. But combine Purpose and Timelines and out comes the 'predator', the direct line thinker. All of the sudden it becomes easy to forget there is a third, Principles. On the flip side I might remember there is a third and get stuck in a paralysis of analysis trying to figure out how to stay on timeline while sticking to the principles with the prupose shouting lous and clear. WOWSER
   So, as I said, I haven't mastered it but it is something that is becoming increasingly important to me as I think about heading back into competition. Since I began Parelli I have steered clear of the competition ring (knowing what I was like before), and things have been relatively stress free (after my Parelli levels strings, of course :-). But now I'm trying to put the timeline piece back in and I find if I'm not 'beating myself up' for putting my goal ahead of my principle then I'm doing nothing and becoming ineffective in an effort to keep my principles ahead of my purpose! ARGH!
   Complicated! At times I think "wouldn't it be better for my horse if I just took what is now the easy road for me and stuck to just practicing principles?", but then I'm reminded of Pat asking us how interesting it is to say the alphebet? At first, it's great, the best song in the world!! When you first learn it you go around singing to anyone who will listen (often to yourself, but 'who really cares at this stage?'). Then it gets a little boring. What becomes exciting next (depending on your teacher, I suppose) is how to put the letters together to make words, then sentences, then stories and so on. Well, so is the horsemanship journey. I could happily sit at my current level of skills and knowledge with perfect peace and comfort for a LONG time (I'm an introvert by nature, so it would take some time before I was bored enough to decide to make a change), however my horses are already bored!! Pat says horses learn up to 7x faster then humans! Can you believe that? By just showing up we're already behind! With this in mind I started looking predicatably to my extrovert some time ago, and HE is ready for me to step up my game, NOW! So, as is often the case in horsemanship I find myself attempting to stretch myself because my horses need me to. Yes I'll reap the benefits as well, but this is only a secondary focus. My horses need me to get uncomfortable, they need me to push my comfort zone and figure out how to stretch it so that I can push it again.
   As much as my human nature may cause me to 'beat myself up' after an imperfect day, my horses need me to 'get over myself' and keep pushing forward. They need me to learn from my mistakes, after all, Linda says "they're only mistakes if you already know better, so as a student you can't make a mistake". What a powerful concept to truely understand! (leave it to Linda :-).As I journey into this world of combining all the information I've learned, Pat's horsemanship Principles, my Purpose, and the shows Timelines I need to learn a valuable skill, the ability to FORGIVE myself, learn from what's happened and be the best I can be TODAY. It's a new part of my journey and one that I am truely excited about learning from!!