Self criticism vs self talk…
You finish a round, maybe you’ve made an error, maybe you’ve not jumped your best.
Self criticism says …
‘I can’t ride’
‘I’m not good enough’
‘I bet everyone thought that was awful’
‘This was wrong and I messed up here and …’
Self talk says…
‘This line was good, I checked a bit too much down there in hindsight I could have been softer, I’ll work on that by…’
‘One bad round does not mean I am s**t and I can’t do it, it’s just a bad round, everyone has bad rounds’
‘I know where my mistakes were, and I know I can use them to improve’
‘That round does not define me as a rider’
You’re in the warm up and you look around…
Self criticism says…
‘Who am I to be in here’
Self talk says…
‘Who am I not to be here’
You’re in a training session or walking a course and there is a fence you don’t like and you are not sure your horse will …
‘Self critism says-
‘I can’t jump that, I’ll do it wrong, I won’t see a stride, im bound to mess it up and fall off’
Self talk says-
‘Focus on what you can control.’
‘Chin up, leg on’
‘You’ve got this you can do this.’
Which version are you currently let win… 👀
Sian Phipps- Performance Psychology Consultancy
Sian Phipps- Performance Psychology Consultant
Founder of The 1% Edge co. Science backed strategies for confident and consistent performance under pressure.
SPCoaching
Graduate in Equitation Coaching Sport Science Bsc (hons) (2.1)
UKCC Level Two Coach
Registered Pony Club Coach
Experience in coaching all ages and abilities, both group and individual sessions! Goal setting, video analysis, competition coaching assistance also available!
Process VS outcome ⬇️
This is one of the biggest blocks for riders, they become emotionally attached to the outcome or result.
What do I mean by this?
You might have a bad round, a fall, a terrible training session… and that one bad outcome, moment or result can very easily become a negative story in your mind. (Especially if left unnoticed over time)
The bad outcome, rather than being a learning opportunity, is a failure which you attach an emotion to ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘I’m useless’, ‘I always make that mistake, I just can’t do it’.
We give meaning to the mistake. We dwell on it.
Rather than seeing it logically as just that- a mistake.
Part of the process.
When riders switch from
OUTCOME➡️PROCESS FOCUS
They are able to …
✨See mistakes and failures as feedback. This they can use to adjust their system or their plan. Or just that today wasn’t a good day.
✨Not dwell. They don’t make it the whole story, that has to be re read. They look at outcomes logically, take what information they need and then let it go.
✨Stay in the moment. Process means systems. Systems allow you to stay in the moment even when the pressure is high because nothing changes, the process stays the same for the Olympics as it does in a training session.
How do you start to your mindset?
Adjust your goals from outcome to process focussed!
How?
Focus on feel, focus on what you can control.
Instead of I want a top 3 placing, or I want to qualify for X…
The goals become, I want the round to feel smooth, soft and in flow where turns feel easy and I can keep my rhythm…
Which produces a winning round.
Have a think, are you getting emotionally attached to outcomes? Letting them knock your self belief?
We’ll be chatting more about this on the NEW PODCAST which is launching on the 24th August 👀
Keep an eye out for more info 🎙️
06/08/2026
A little reminder if you’ve been following this page for a while and you’re interested in Eventing Training with me as well as Psychology make sure you are a member of the SP Eventing Academy Community for all clinic and training dates ☺️
Who has a fear of failure 🙋♀️
Yep this was a big one for me, and it can still rear its ugly head if I’m not careful. If you are a bit of a perfectionist, can be quite self critical and will pile on a load of pressure to avoid failure at all costs … then you probably need to hear this.
Failure is part of the journey to success NOT instead of the journey to success.
They are not mutually exclusive.
The only thing fearing failure is doing is STOPPING you reaching your goals.
How?
Because a fear of failure is telling you to do 2 things - stay in your comfort zone and not try.
Success does not live in either of those 2 places.
So how do we stop this fear of failure, fear of a bad result or not looking good enough …
1)Give yourself permission to fail.
Literally. One key thing I said to myself every single event and I still use this now is ‘I give myself permission to pull up’ - permission reduces pressure.
2) When things have gone wrong- we learn.
In order to build a solid system and process, in order to improve and achieve goals we have to be looking at rhe HOW’s (ok that happened - how can I do that differently? What have I learn from that )
3) Self belief, resilience and mental toughness are all formed through failure. Write down despite whatever went wrong … what did I do well. What were the positives. These start to build you belief in the PROCESS rather than relying on the desired outcome!
05/08/2026
Why going against ‘the norm’ is not always easy…
You’re brain likes when routines feel normal, when systems are in your comfort zone…
when people aren’t going to be looking at you weird!
Your brain thinks fitting in and following the norm is a safer option. 🤦♀️
Sticking to your own system can often trigger threat alarms in your nervous system.
UNTIL those systems work. 🤔
When your system gives you positive results and outcomes, your brain quietens down again…
The problem is often creating a system that works takes trial and error. Sometimes things work and other times, they dont.
Self belief, and belief in your system therefore CANNOT rely on the outcome.
You have to be able to see the process, the bigger picture and hold the belief… despite your brain potentially saying otherwise!
This is where the work I do can be life changing, because you get the tools to manage your thoughts and, to hold that self belief.
To trust the process.
And to create a system that gets the outcomes and allows you to achieve the goals!
And, you get it from someone who has been there.
Who lives by thinking outside the box to get the best out of myself and my horses, and the riders I work with.
Two riders, two horses are rarely the same and they certainly don’t fit into a box or the ‘norm’.
The 1% Edge works solely to allow you to think outside the box, hold that self belief and create your 1% Edge!
28/07/2026
‘They just don’t get nervous’ …is the biggest myth when it comes to high performance👀
Performance anxiety happens to athletes at every level and, it isn’t something you can just ‘get rid of’.
Nerves, anxiety, butterflies … whatever you want to call it… are all completely NORMAL!
They are your brains reaction to stepping out of your comfort zone.
The problem is your brain doesn’t actually know the difference between you jumping a clear round for a major championship and…
well getting chased by a lion. 🙈
That’s if you leave your thoughts and your mind unmanaged because, if you let your dominant thoughts become nerves, fear, anxiety, worry…
You end up in flight, fright or freeze mode.
The wrong part of your brain is in control,
The wrong thoughts are dominating,
And then the wrong outcome happens…
The goal isn’t to get rid of nerves- that’s impossible.
The control is to learn to control your thoughts, manage your mind and enable to dominant part of your brain to be the part that allows you to perform at your best.
A simple way to work towards this is to simply begin tracking your thoughts…
✨When are negative thoughts dominating?
✨When do they start? The day before? In the ring?
✨When are they not there?
Tracking your patterns allows you to develop a system to take back control 💪
26/07/2026
3 lessons you NEED to know if you have big goals..
The pathway to success and achieving big goals is rarely linear.
So what traits do those at the top have to get there, and stay there…
As I navigated my way through the last 3 years I was lucky enough to be living in the midst of these lessons, as well as researching some of the best athletes, business owners and science there is.
And 3 lessons kept coming up, regardless of where I looked.
✨1) You have to take accountability for everything.
It’s so easy to blame someone else, your team, your horse, your kit, the weather.
It’s so easy to dwell on the sh*t life throws your way… and trust me I know some of it will literally shatter you.
You can’t control any of that. But, you can control what you do next.
How do you react, what’s your response, what’s your next move… do you let victim mentality rule the script or, do you take accountability of the story.
✨2) Resilience and mental toughness don’t grow when you’re winning.
And both are non-negotiable if you want to reach the top.
You have to be able bounce back, after a bad performance, a bad day, a bad season. You have to be able dig that little bit deeper, and push through in the moment when your brain is telling you ‘you can’t do it’… because you can.
✨3) Habits are key.
It’s easier to stay and get back on track if you’ve built a system to work with you not against you.
What you do in the morning when you first wake up, what you eat, what you think? Are you setting yourself up for success or making yourself swim against the current.
The 1%’s compound.
They build success and they build self-belief.
I haven’t pulled these out of the sky.
It’s in the research.
You can look at 99% of pro athletes and business owners and see how important these are.
And I’ve been there. I’ve lived it.
So wherever you are on your journey right now,
How can you implement these lessons into your life?👀
It’s been a while 🎙️
When I decided it was time to relaunch the podcast, I had a look back at when the last episode came out…
March 2023.
Just before my world started to fall apart piece by piece.
Corillo had a Eventing career ending injury in March 2023, I wasn’t even sure if he’d come right at all.
J’adoero Douglas (Sausage), nearly a year to the day had to under go life saving colic Surgery in March 2024, followed by 2 further minor surgeries on his tongue and removing a keritoma in August 2024.
I lost my wonderful ex racehorse Altipix in August 2024.
All’s whilst dealing with a toxic environment, and my mental health was horrendous. Horrendous enough to cause physical health issues which included severe weight loss, an enlarged spleen and what they thought might be cancer. Thankfully after a lot of tests and scans they concluded it was in fact just severe stress.
Despite all of this I commited to starting my Performance Psychology masters in September 2024, I didn’t know how I was going to do it all, but I was going give it my best shot.
In December 2024 I decided to move my whole life, completely change my business model and essentially start from scratch. I lost £1000’s, but my health was more important and it was 100% the right decision for the horses and I.
October 2025 I lost my biggest supporter and my best friend. My grandad. 💔
But I’ve had some massive highs.
I’ve got both of my horses back out competing, signed some amazing Performance Psychology Clients, got some wonderful horses and owners based with and completed 2 year of my masters🎉
This isn’t a sob story or for sympathy. It’s here to show you sometimes life really does go to sh*t. Sometimes you get back up and bam it hits you again, and again.
But that doesn’t mean you stop.
You might hit pause.
You might alter the plan.
You might feel like giving up.
But you learn. You build resilience.
And you go again.
The 1% Edge isnt about just performing at your best when it’s going well…
Its about building the Psychological skill set and mental toughness that you can handle the highs and the lows💪
Watch this space for episode
23/07/2026
Something new is coming 🎙️
If you’ve been here a while you’ll have seen many chapters to this story… from starting my business all the way back when I was at uni ‘The Equestrian Confidence Coach’ all the way to now.
I’ve had a few re brands.
I’ve had some incredible highs and some incredible lows.
I’ve learnt a lot from life, from experience and from the qualifications I’ve been lucky enough to take including my Performance Psychology Masters.
So I thought it’s time for a new chapter to this story.
….PODCAST RETURN PENDING 🎙️
Watch this space for Episode 1! 👀
02/05/2026
The route to success is NOT linear … 😬
And this is what catches most people out.
They think because something hasn’t gone to plan, they’ve had a set back… or they’ve failed
That this means they can’t do it.
But that’s just what your chimp brain wants you to think. 🙊🙈
Your chimp brain is negatively bias … which mean when something goes wrong it LOVES to use it at evidence to ‘prove’ you can’t do something.
But, there is a massive flaw with your chimp brain…
It has no logic, no critical thinking and no ability to look at that moment at feedback.
It works in all or nothing thinking.
Outcome, ego driven thinking.
It does not consider the process.
And the truth is that process is going to have some bumps in the road. That route to success is going to be continuous progression.
You ARE going to have days that are 2 steps forward and 10 steps back.
You ARE going to have messy middles, hard beginnings and have to keep going again and again when it gets tough
You ARE going to be nervous sometimes.
You ARE going to doubt yourself.
And that’s all normal.
And has nothing to do with whether you can do something or not.
Embrace the highs and learn from the lows.
Keep going.
Because that bumpy path is the right one 💛
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