Have You Made The DECISION?

Our SWAT firearms training day started out like any other that I created. We ran an obstacle course with various ranges and levels of concentration on differing sizes of targets. It started with a 200 yard shot on a steel plate. The boys were doing well so I went and observed the next stage of fire which was shooting some mid range steel plates with their handgun in their support hand. That’s where the missing began. How could they hit a steel plate at 200 yards with their rifle, and then miss a larger steel plate at a mere 12 yards with their handgun?

Now I am not picking on my team, as they are all brothers that my life may depend on, but what was the underlying problem? Why were they missing?

Same scenario, different venue. I used to be a backyard hero with my bow. In my mind, few could rival the accuracy that I could generate with my longbow. Notice I said, “In my mind.” I tore it up on 3-D courses, but you put an animal in front of me, and I would fall apart. Sometimes the arrow would be fired by seemingly someone else. It was like I would black out and let some other being get me through that stressful situation. The shots were horrible on game, but in my backyard, I was a hero. What was the difference?

The physical act of shooting my bow was no different. The SWAT team has been thoroughly trained in the proper PHYSICAL techniques of shooting with their support hand and yet they still miss sometimes. I preach and I preach and I preach the importance of the mentality of shooting both to my students in the law enforcement firearms world and my students in the archery world, and yet, some still choose to MISS!

What I mean by they choose to miss is just that. The SWAT operator that misses an easy shot, chooses to miss that shot. The archer that falls apart on a bull elk chooses to miss. Some might say, “Well that’s crazy, I would never choose to be unsuccessful.” However, if you do not know what decisions you have to make, when to make those decisions, and HOW to carry those decisions out WITHIN your shot, your subconscious is choosing for you. Your subconscious will always choose the easy route. It will choose the route of automatic movements, because that is how we learn. Your chosen automatic movements will always be linked to involuntary movements like recoil bracing. If you do not consciously decide to shoot the shot perfectly in a precision environment, you will automatically default to nature. Nature is not a very good shot! That’s the difference. Either you allow nature to shoot for you, or you decide to control your shot.

So I stopped the training that day on SWAT. I had a long chat with the team. I told them of how we were going to run and shoot until they all became masters at making the decision to shoot the round perfectly or not shoot it at all. We ran and we shot, still some missed. I had the targets set at such a distance that anything other than a perfect trigger press would lead to failure. Failure meant extra push ups. We ran and we shot, still some missed, but the number was getting fewer. The more tired we got, the more I could see the team buckle down. We ran and we shot until there were no more misses. It took them a long time to finally decide. The only way to make the pain stop was to decide to press the trigger perfectly and then carry that decision out like I have trained them to do.

The decision to shoot a shot perfectly or not at all is extremely difficult for the human mind to get over. It took miles of running to finally get my team members to make that decision. What is it going to take to get you to make that decision. If you make that decision, do you know when to make it within your shot and do you know HOW to carry that decision out?

The reason we continue to choose to miss is that we as humans hope that things are going to work for us. My SWAT team took my training and hoped it was going to work for them. Archers around the world take training and hope it is going to work for them. NOTHING OUT THERE IS GOING TO WORK FOR YOU!!!! You have to DECIDE to work for it. I teach people HOW to do the work. The physicality of training does not transfer to high stress precision events unless the mentality of shooting comes first. The mentality can only transfer to high stress events through making the decision to think, the decision to remember, the decision to evaluate, and the ultimate vow to only shoot that shot perfectly or not at all.

You cannot go into situations and hope things are going to work out in your shooting. When presented with a shot opportunity, you must know HOW you are going to be successful. If you know what the decisions are and how to make those decisions, you will stop being the victim of your own subconscious.

Have you made the decision? Are you going into your hunt of a lifetime with only hope on your side? There is a better way. Decide to succeed.

If this newsletter gets you thinking about your shooting situation and you want complete control of your mind in high stress shooting events, visit me at ironmindhunting.com. Take a look at my online course and my live events. Don’t let hope be your only weapon this season!