Ten Years Later, I’m Grateful I Didn’t Quit

As 2025 came to a close, I found myself looking back at the last ten years with a kind of quiet amazement.

Ten years ago, I was a just person with a teacher education and a lot of time spent on the meditation cushion. Today, I’m the owner of a small business and an international clinician. If you had shown me this life in 2015, I honestly don’t think I would have believed you. And yet… here we are. This has been the most important decade of my life so far.

There’s a quote I’ve carried with me for years: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” It’s often attributed to Bill Gates.

And for me, it turned out to be painfully true in the best possible way.

2015 was a turning point. It was the year of my first internship with Bent Branderup, and the first time I really stepped into the Academic Art of Riding. I remember having this sudden, very clear vision: This is where I want to go. Not in a dramatic, movie-scene way. More like something inside me quietly clicked into place. And I started teaching on a tiny scale: private lessons in my area, a few people here and there, just doing my best.

The first years were… hard. Financially hard. Emotionally hard. The kind of hard where you lie awake at night and think, “Maybe I should just get a regular job. Something safe. Something with a predictable paycheck.” There were many moments like that.

And there was my husband: steady, unwavering, calm – saying, again and again: “I believe in you. You will find your way.” I don’t think I can fully express what that kind of support meant to me. It didn’t remove the fear. But it helped me to keep going and to start believing in myself.

The next years were defined by studying, learning, hard work, and slowly, so slowly, starting to find my voice as a trainer and teacher. I spent an insane amount of time driving to teach lessons, and teaching clinics under circumstances that were sometimes really challenging. Long days, long roads, weather, arenas that were not ideal, logistics that were messy… and still trying to show up with my best heart and my best mind for the horses and the people in front of me.

And then, just as things started to go well – international clinics booked, momentum building – the pandemic hit.

In some ways, it was a gift. My husband and I had time for each other. I had time for the horses. Life got quieter, and parts of me needed that. But financially… it was scary. It threw us back many years. Both of us were suddenly not allowed to work in our professions, and the ground under our feet felt very uncertain.

I had already done online lessons before, but during that time I started teaching webinars and a lot more online lessons. And I loved it, because it forced me to study one topic deeply, to put everything together that I knew, to refine how I explain things. I really wanted people to get value for their money, not just “a webinar” that is basically an advertisement for my services. There are so many of those out there. I wanted mine to be real teaching. In a strange way, those webinars made me a better teacher.

About four years ago, I started my Classroom. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made. And this year, something happened that feels small but is actually huge: for the first time in a decade, I was able to take a break for two weeks at the end of the year and not worry about money. I don’t say that to impress anyone. I say it because I know how many people are living with that constant background stress, and I know what it costs over time.

And alongside all of that, there was the quiet reality of starting over in a new country – as a foreigner, with all the small daily obstacles that come with that.

When I moved to Poland, I felt very lost and alone. Of course there were language barriers, but it went deeper than that. The way I think about horsemanship, and the ethics of horse training, didn’t always match what I saw around me. It was hard to find like-minded people who were interested in learning this beautiful way of training. And, to be honest, there were also a lot of stories going around about Academic Art of Riding, stories about it being harmful for the horse, stories that often came from people who had never been to any of my seminars or lessons.

I don’t want to write this in a defensive way, because that isn’t my point. My point is simply: it hurt. It’s painful to feel misunderstood, especially when you care so deeply about doing right by the horse. And yes – over time, as I became more known, those stories seemed to grow louder.

The pandemic helped me shift my mindset in a way I didn’t expect. I stopped trying to be “the person who brings Academic Art of Riding to Poland,” and I started allowing myself to be an international teacher – finding my community all over the world. I regret having to say this so directly, and please excuse my honesty, but I was not able to live from teaching in the country where I live. That reality was heartbreaking at times. I didn’t want to admit it for a long time. And it also pushed me, again, towards the people who did understand, who did want to learn, who did value this work.

So here I am, at the edge of a new year, feeling grateful. Grateful for my husband. Grateful for my students. Especially those who live close and helped me become the teacher I am today (you know who you are). Grateful for every person who supported me along this journey, in whatever form, kind words, trust, bookings, Classroom membership, sharing my work, showing up to learn, asking thoughtful questions, staying curious.

And if there’s one thing I want to leave you with, it’s this:

Take a moment and look back at your own last ten years. Where were you in 2015? What did you believe was possible then? What quiet vision did you maybe have, one you didn’t fully dare to follow? Decades are built in very ordinary days. In small steps. In “one foot in front of the other.” And sometimes the life you can’t yet imagine is already waiting for you, on the other side of consistency, courage, and time.

I had my husband telling me, again and again – I believe in you. So here I am telling this to everyone who has to hear this today. I believe in you! You can do this ❤