Shooters who are so intent on winning are at a great disadvantage because these desires create tension and pressure. We become our own best enemy and you tend to lose the joy and fun of the game.
Detaching from these external desires reduces tension and improves performance. When you go into a course and go to shoot a score, your performance will suffer. Your goal becomes not to hit each target; your goal has become not to miss. The difference in attitude makes the conscious mind become more aware of missing, not hitting. If you are thinking of missing, what will you get? More misses.
Think more about each target and how to hit it. If it doesn’t break, there is always another one coming for you to hit. Make your conscious mind think of only one bird at a time and how to hit it. Any time wasted on getting upset with your miss will only make more misses happen. If you miss, stop and figure out what it takes to hit the target. Don’t dwell on where you were if it did not break. That did not work, so why be so consumed with it?
Make yourself figure out how to correct the miss and make it a success. Failure is a good thing if you will learn from it. That way whenever you see that type of target again, you will know how to hit it. Putting emotion into a miss ensures that you will miss again.
Become more focused on hitting and learning from each hit and miss, and your performance will go up. Besides, no one wants to shoot with someone who gets angry at himself everytime he/she misses a target.
