Mindset to Move Up the Levels

4 Keys to Qualifying Faster & Climbing the Leaderboard Without Breaking Down

“Even naturally gifted athletes who want to perform to their total potential need outstanding physical and mental strengths because their secret to great performances is not their innate athleticism or technical skills―it’s their mind.” -Jim Afremow (sports psychologist)

The pressure to qualify and move up is intense. Do you feel like you’re running on fumes—mentally, physically, or both—as you chase qualifications? Are you pushing yourself harder but seeing diminishing returns? You’re not alone. In the race to secure enough qualifiers, many riders push their horses to the limit—but even more unknowingly overtrain themselves, leading to exhaustion instead of excellence.

True elite mastery isn’t about trying harder; it’s about training wiser—balancing physical conditioning & recovery with mental resilience and strategic failure.

Here are 4 key strategies to develop the mindset to secure your qualifiers and move up the levels of your sport while keeping both you and your horse sound, sharp and competition-ready.

Key 1: Master the Mindset of Progression — Train Your Mind Like an Olympian

• Fail Up, Don’t Break Down: Fear of failure promotes a continual pattern of downed rails, poorly executed transitions, and average performances—keeping you out of the leaderboard. Reframe failure as a strategic stepping stone: Mistakes are an untapped power source to launch you further forward.

• Embrace the ‘Podium Perspective’: Instead of focusing only on qualifying and winning, train like you already are the elite equestrian who consistently delivers outstanding performances.

• Mental Training & Recovery: Just like physical conditioning, your mind needs to be trained (or retrained) and recovered daily. In today’s environment, not only is it never allowed to rest—it is inundated with nonstop input. Think of your mind as a computer. If you don’t delete files and only keep accumulating them, the computer—your mind—loses its ability to function properly. Mental fatigue, lack of focus, and slower response time are just a few symptoms of an overloaded mind. Meditation is an ancient and powerful way to delete old files.

• Tip: Your mind is full of thoughts and if you try  to just “stop thinking”, that’s like putting your 3 year old thoroughbred on stall rest in an attempt to develop relaxation. Instead, give your mind something productive to do! Try this 5-minute meditation to bring clarity to your mind and optimization to your performance.

• Podium Perspective Meditation: Find a picture of a top rider who inspires you. Fix your gaze on the picture and bring your attention to your breath. Repeat the mantra: ‘I am an elite equestrian’. As you catch your mind wandering, simply bring it back to the mantra and back to your breath. Not only does this simple meditation ‘delete the files’ of outgrown thoughts, it focuses your unconscious mind on developing the foundation needed to become the elite equestrian you were born to be.

Key 2: Physical Resilience From the Inside Out

• You can’t perform at your peak when the foundation of your body—your internal system—is compromised. Your nervous system, endocrine system and digestive system are some of the unsung heroes that build the strong bones and muscle you train for. Both you and your horse need an athletic internal system in order to achieve (and sustain) top-performing athletic resilience.

• Nervous System — The Commander & Regulator

  Your nervous system is like the conductor of an orchestra or the head trainer of your body. It makes split-second decisions, gives precise orders, and coordinates movement—just like a rider giving clear aids to their horse. Timing, balance, and responsiveness ensure a symphony of seamless motion and control.

• Endocrine System — The Strategist & Regulator

  Think of a vaulting performance—where balance, timing, and teamwork create harmony. Your endocrine system is like the lunger, the vaulter, and the horse working in unison. It regulates energy, recovery, and emotional stability, ensuring everything runs smoothly, much like the lunger’s well-timed cues keep the vaulter and horse in perfect rhythm.

• Digestive System — The Fuel System & Waste Management

  Your digestive system is both the engine and filtration system of your body. Like a high-performance car or a well-conditioned equine athlete, it takes in fuel, processes it into usable energy, and removes waste efficiently. The engine (stomach) breaks down food, the converter (intestines) absorbs nutrients, and the filtration/exhaust system (liver, kidneys, colon) eliminates toxins. Your body thrives when kept in balance and properly fueled. Like your truck, your body’s engine is a literal workhorse—it’s no wonder its output is measured by horsepower!

• The techniques of Kundalini Yoga work on all of the system operations of the body. Focused breath work, rhythmic movements and dynamic meditations deliver a proven process to bring balance and peak performance to the body.

• Tip: Try this 3-minute breathing technique to balance your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system and improve brain function:

  • Alternate Nostril Breathing—Inhale through your left nostril and exhale through your right nostril.

  • Bonus: Do this with your horse present and watch how they respond!

  
  

Key 3: Energy Mastery — The Secret Weapon of Elite Riders

• Elite riders feel their horses and their own bodies at a deep level—but many ignore early warning signs. Body awareness = longevity as well as precision. Not only does your body send you signals before breakdown occurs, but when you are tuned into your body you deepen your connection with your horse. This allows you the precision and accuracy that only subtlety can achieve.

• Emotional energy matters: Horses reflect their riders’ internal states—what’s your energy saying? Anticipation and fear are easy to recognize, but there are deeper emotions going on behind the scenes. Even if your awareness doesn’t pick up on them, your horse does.

• Your energy is stored in your body. You can think of it as the vapor to the water that is your body—it’s made of the same substance, just in a more subtle form.

• You can find trapped energy that is unknowingly affecting your horse by enhancing your own body awareness.

• Tip: Try this pre-ride body check to tune in:

  • Wiggle your toes, engage your calves, raise your knees…

  • Continue moving up your body as you engage each part.

  • Simply notice any tension or ease that presents itself and ride on!

Key 4: Precision Over Pressure — A Selective Mindset to Move Up the Levels

• Many riders think that training more or pushing harder will lead to greater progress.

• Train wiser, not harder. Less is more—choose quality over quantity.

• Training and competition selectivity puts more focus and care behind each one, bringing about bigger breakthroughs, deeper understanding and quicker transformation for both you and your horse—without the extra wear and tear.

• Slow down to speed up. More recovery time allows your body to strengthen & repair which improves your performance and allows you to avoid the setbacks that training harder and more often deliver—ensuring much greater longterm progression taking you farther up the leaderboard.

• There are 3 functional aspects to your mind. These “decision-makers” help your mind make choices. In order for you to eliminate setbacks and follow your most direct path to the top, these decision-makers must be in balance.

• The opportunist seeks fulfillment, pleasure and possibility. It is constructive, risk-taking and active.

• The skeptic seeks survival so it is reactive, protective and in search of danger.

• The mediator assesses and observes both the opportunist and the skeptic from a neutral point of view.

• For most equestrians in today’s world the mediator mind is the least developed. Many either hear all the reasons why they should or all the reasons why they shouldn’t do something. However, even more equestrians are inundated by the clamoring thoughts of both sides like that old image of the devil on one should and an angel on the other as confusion and overwhelm take over.

• Tip: Imagine the opportunist sitting on your right shoulder and the skeptic sitting on your left. Listen to their suggestions. Let them get louder as they pull out all the reasons they think you should do or not do something. As the thoughts chime on, shift your focus to yourself. Let yourself be the mediator as you simply witness the bickering. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t even have to make a choice! Just observe and breathe.

• When you make it a habit to exercise the mediator mind, you bring your mind into clarity and begin to make decisions with both conviction and ease.

The only thing standing between you and Gold is your mind. The practice of these 4 keys brings clarity and focus so you can move beyond reacting to your unconscious mind and begin to harness its power so you can develop the mindset to move up the levels of your sport and claim your victory.

Master your mind and nothing will stop you.

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Amrit Premgeet Kaur is a Mind Mastery Coach and teacher of Kundalini Yoga who helps equestrians train their minds for peak performance under pressure. A lifelong horsewoman and former competitive rider, she blends mental performance coaching, yogic wisdom, and deep equestrian insight to guide athletes beyond burnout and into sustainable excellence. Through her signature four pillars—Power, Precision, Poise, and Passion—Amrit helps riders transform failure into fuel and revolutionize their sport from the inside out.

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