The Imperfect Ride: Your Guide to Being Better By Not Trying to Be the Best

Andrea Waldo―rider, trainer, instructor, and former psychotherapist―is back to tackle the problem of perfectionism, with a roadmap for riders to identify how the idea of “perfect” actually interferes with progress…and distracts from your day-to-day enjoyment of your time with your horse.  

With Waldo’s guidance, born of a compelling combination of research and personal experience, you can more deeply understand the intended positives and the serious negatives of pushing yourself to be “perfect.” Learn what might be lurking behind your drive to hold yourself to the highest ideal―and discover the limits it’s actually imposing on you and your riding. Explore distinctive, focused mental exercises designed to help you construct a clearer understanding of the role of perfectionism in your life and provide a practical approach to self-improvement that is both healthy and horse-friendly.

With an eye toward the unique situations equestrians face, this book helps readers:
- Identify different types of perfectionism
- Learn how to manage (and even work with!) perfectionist thinking
- Reframe “mistakes” as a natural phase of the learning and self-growth process
- Navigate the “messy middle”―the times when we’ve surpassed a skill or a situation but haven’t figured out what comes next
- Rediscover the joy of riding and horsemanship

Develop the tools to be inspired by ideals instead of pressured by them, tie your self-worth to measurable, meaningful goals instead of prizes or results, and take the first steps toward a more satisfying, less stressful relationship with yourself and with your horse, and a deeper, truer, and more profound definition of “success.”

Andrea Monsarrat Waldo holds a master’s degree in counseling and was certified in 2008 as a riding instructor by the United States Eventing Association. She is co-owner of Triple Combination Farm in Ferrisburgh, Vermont, where she and her two business partners train horses and riders of all ages and abilities in the sports of eventing and dressage. Waldo has competed through the advanced level in eventing, has shown through third level in dressage, and has brought along several horses from the very beginning of their training. She was a practicing psychotherapist from 1994 until 2012 and now does StressLess Riding Performance Coaching in workshops and individual sessions with equestrians at all levels of horse sports. Waldo lives in Monkton, Vermont, and is the author of the bestselling book Brain Training for Riders (triplecombinationfarm.com).