When a hobby or activity is important to you, it naturally becomes a huge part of your life. But few pastimes have the same significant and lasting impact as horse riding. The lessons, skills, and experiences you have when you regularly ride and care for a horse have a tremendously positive effect on the rest of your life. If you currently are a horse rider, this truth will probably come as no surprise to you. You’ve likely experienced endless benefits and pleasant outcomes through your horse activities. If you’re considering taking up horse riding, you have much to look forward to.

Here are 6 ways that horse riding will change your life.

1. You find yourself reacting in new ways.

Developing a relationship with your horse, working in tandem, and making fast decisions pays off in other areas of life. You’ll likely find that you’ve built a different, perhaps faster, method for observing and analysing the world around you. This enables you to make strong decisions even when under pressure. You will also likely discover your senses seem sharper.

2. Your confidence doubles or triples.

Once you’ve gotten the hang of controlling a massive animal and handling your riding with grace, you will feel that sense of self-confidence translating to all areas of your life. Suddenly, what used to seem like major obstacles now feels entirely surmountable. This increased confidence also allows your natural talents and abilities to shine through more easily, which means you do better work in your career and at home.

3. New challenges? You tackle them head on.

No more do you feel hesitant about venturing into unfamiliar territory. As a horse rider, you know that preparation, practice, and patience combine together to get you through virtually anything. If you apply these principles to other parts of your daily life (which you will no doubt begin to do automatically), you will discover how well this approach serves you at work, at school, at play, or in your other activities.

4. You find you possess increasing physical strength and stamina.

Riding and caring for your horse, cleaning out stalls and carrying hay, these humbling activities serve their direct purpose, but they also indirectly build your strength over time. Endurance, muscle tone, and physical strength are all going to increase significantly. This gives you the power to handle things that perhaps you could not in the past, and opens up your options wide.

5. Hard work is not something you dread, but something that invigorates you.

Just as it strengthens your body, the work involved in horse riding and horse care gives greater strength to your mind. A solid work ethic and an appreciation of the necessity of hard work is developed in this endeavour. Soon, you may even find that the continuous hard work of horsemanship is a pleasure. There is definitely a reward for the fullness of hard work and horse riding is a great way to discover this (and then apply it to other aspects of your life).

6. You learn the right way to ask.

Seldom does one get a good answer when they push, demand, or force. This is true in riding horses. Your horse will not respond well to these methods of control. Rather, a true horse rider knows that patience, gentle coaxing, and the development of a trusting relationship are key to working together. You can impart this knowledge to your life in countless ways.

Start your horse riding adventure and grab life by he reigns.