Decisions, Decisions

Your success at the moment of truth is not dictated by your shooting ability. It depends solely on your ability to make decisions within your shot.

Your success on the shot of a lifetime depends not on your shooting ability, but on your decision making ability. You may practice your shooting all year long in an attempt to get better at shooting. The ultimate goal of your practice is to make that perfect shot an automatic movement that will carry you through in that stressful moment. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you only practice your shooting, and not the mental mechanics of the perfect shot, you are only relying on hope. Hope is not a course of action. If you only practice the physicality of shooting, you are not training the skills you need to transfer under extreme stress. You must use the unnatural act of shooting to practice your concentration. But do not expect the skill of concentration to automatically transfer to a stressful shooting event. You must know the science of “HOW” to concentrate.

Again, it is all about your ability to make decisions. But what decisions need to be made for that controlled shot? When do we need to make these decisions? How do we carry these decisions out once they have been made? I have analyzed all of my successes and my failures in extreme stress shooting. The only difference in those shots was whether or not I had made the decision to shoot a perfect shot.

I always tried to make that decision as that screaming bull elk was coming in, but my mind was racing, thinking of how much of a hero I was going to be. As soon as I knew the bull was coming, I would say to myself, “I’m going to do this right.” However, by the time the bull got to me, so many things had transpired and my mind had been distracted by so many things the decision to run my shot sequence had long past expired. I would then find myself attempting to run the shot automatically, usually a dismal failure.

I then began to notice on the successfully controlled shots, I made the decision to follow my shot sequence within the shot itself. I call it my “Half Draw Moment.” At half draw, I would say those same words, “I’m going to do this right” With such a fresh reminder, it had an extremely calming effect on the shot itself. It set me into the mind frame of shot control. It reminded me of the two jobs within my shot. The “Half Draw Moment” would get me to anchor and aim at the spot.

The last newsletter was about the “Critical Second.” That is the second decision in your shot. The critical second for me is filled with these words, “Here I go.” That gets me into my shot activation movement.

These decisions became an integral part of my success under extreme stress shooting. But this is only the tip of the iceberg in regards to shot control and overcoming target panic under stress. You still need to know the science behind the decisions and how to carry them out.

The complete science of shot control under stress is the focus of my new book, “Controlled Process Shooting - The Science of Target Panic.” This book is available through my website, ironmindhunting.com. To further your education of these life changing skills, I have also created an online course that will be coming soon. The online course is the most comprehensive look into target panic and shot control ever to be created. The book and the course have been compiled over my lifetime of successes and failures in extreme stress shooting. I have unlocked the true code to shot control. This course and the book will teach you the “HOW” of shot control under extreme stress. They address all of the problems I have encountered and experienced in my own shooting career and the shooting styles of every human being that has ever launched an arrow. Every human deals with shot control issues. This science gets to the core problems and will set you on the path to shot control. Life is too short not to have this information.

Joel Turner

Founder of Ironmind Hunting, LLC