4 Acres Pony Rides

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Please ignore the post about closing on the 19th July. Plans have changed and we will now be open 👍🏻

Most conversations about instructor wellbeing focus on burnout due to exhaustion and being overworked. That is worth talking about too but there is another layer underneath it that rarely gets named. It is a quieter, more personal kind of weight that has nothing to do with how many lessons you taught this week and everything to do with how deeply you care about doing this job well. It is the guilt that comes with that caring and almost nobody in this industry is talking about it.

1. The guilt about the student you could not reach.
The one who tried hard and showed up consistently and just never quite clicked with what you were teaching. You changed your approach. You tried different exercises. You explained it twelve different ways and something still did not transfer and you still do not know why. You told yourself it was a learning difference or a confidence issue or just timing and maybe all of those things were true. Except the guilt stayed anyway because somewhere underneath all the professional reasoning is the quiet worry that a better instructor would have found the way in.

2. The guilt about the lesson that was not your best.
You were tired and distracted. Something was going on in your own life that you could not fully leave at the gate. The lesson happened and it was fine... technically adequate, nothing went wrong but you knew the whole time that you were not fully present and your student deserved better than fine. They paid for your best and you gave them something less and you knew it while it was happening and you have not quite forgiven yourself for it.

3. The guilt about saying no.
No to the new student you did not have room for. No to the lesson request on your day off. No to the parent who wanted an extra session the week before the show. You said no because your program could not absorb it or your body needed the rest or the boundaries you set exist for a reason and then you spent the rest of the day wondering if you should have said yes anyway. (Had you said yes, you would be kicking yourself in the butt any way!)

4. The guilt about the horse.
The school horse that had a harder day than you intended on Thursday. You restructured the weekend to let your schoolie recoup but the guilt about Thursday still lingers. You care deeply about your horses, probably more than most people in your life fully understand and caring that much means the moments you feel you fell short of what they deserved sit heavily in a way that is hard to explain to anyone who is not also in this.

5. The guilt about the student who left.
They stopped booking and you never quite found out why. You replayed the last few lessons looking for what you missed or what you could have done differently. Maybe it had nothing to do with you; it could have been their schedule, money, life etc but guilt does not wait for confirmed reasons. It fills the uncertainty with its own version of the story and that version is almost always harder on you than the truth probably was.

6. The guilt about not being further along.
The program you planned to have by now. The qualifications you meant to pursue. The instructor you intended to become. The gap between where you are and where you thought you would be by this point in your career and the guilt that sits in that gap and tells you that the distance between the two is evidence of something you did or did not do rather than just the reality of building something real in an industry that is genuinely hard to build in.

Here is what I want every riding instructor reading this to hear.
The guilt means you care and it means you hold yourself to a standard that most people in most professions never even think about. It means the work matters to you and that you have not found a way to be casual about it because it is not something you can be casual about. Remember though, caring deeply does not mean carrying every imperfect lesson, every student you could not reach, every horse that had a hard day as permanent evidence of your inadequacy. You are human. Your students are human. The horses are horses. None of you show up perfectly every day and none of you are supposed to.

What is the guilt you carry as a riding instructor that nobody talks about?

Reasons behind why we cancel your rides in bad weather 💯👍🏻

The polo ride thru is open for business according to Aero 🤪🤣

9 today 🥳 Happy Birthday Diesel 🎂 🤍💛

Want to know more about us and what we do? Arrange a visit and come meet the team? 🤩