{"id":183,"date":"2009-08-13T18:27:20","date_gmt":"2009-08-13T23:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grayguns.com\/?p=183"},"modified":"2009-08-13T18:27:20","modified_gmt":"2009-08-13T23:27:20","slug":"competitive-mindset-and-affirmative-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grayguns.com\/competitive-mindset-and-affirmative-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Competitive mindset and affirmative decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learning the skills to be competitive is fun, but applying these skills on demand can be frustrating, especially when we are emotionally invested in the results. Indeed, the biggest challenge facing the competitor is to simply trust his subconscious mind to direct his performance just as he trained it to do, and set his ego aside when it really counts most. It\u2019s not enough for you to develop the skills; you need to develop a system to apply these skills on demand.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve trained hard and smart to develop the technical shooting skills you need to succeed in practical competition. Yet, your match performance doesn\u2019t meet your potential ability. Your attention wanders as the pressure you put on yourself from your expectations builds before each stage. Rather than shooting proactively through your subconscious, you become tentative, conscious and reactive. Your fear of missing drives your performance and your results are marred by procedural errors, poor trigger control and a sense of being rushed.<\/p>\n

\"range-shooting-prep\"<\/a>If the above description sounds familiar, you are in excellent company. If you arrive at the range without having a clear plan of action, you\u2019ll invariably make poor competitive decisions in response to self-imposed pressures driven by our expectations and fear of failure.<\/p>\n

The difference between a great competitor and a good one isn\u2019t in his shooting skill, but rather in his ability to deliver a higher percentage of that skill in competition. Most likely, he has a system that anchors him emotionally against the changing tides of match pressure, future expectations and past results, and frees his subconscious from these distractions to do the job he\u2019s trained it to do.<\/p>\n

Your system should emphasize staying in the moment, focused on the process of shooting while letting the results take care of themselves. Just as your subconscious mind responds well to the visualization techniques you use to develop practical marksmanship skills, you can use visualization to build the competitive system you need to excel.<\/p>\n

\"range-shooting-01\"<\/a>It will help you greatly to give yourself a set of rules to follow. Here\u2019s a set of affirmations and positive decisions to guide your thinking and prompt your best performance. I stole these from many other shooters over the years, but you\u2019ll immediately recognize a consistent theme: each decision reinforces the process used to reach your goal, rather than focusing on the goal itself.<\/p>\n

In no particular order:<\/p>\n