The Three Myths of Improved Performance
The three myths of improved performance are:
- Abilities are limited by genetics or surroundings.
(There are obvious exceptions. For example, height is an advantage in sports like basketball and football and maybe swimming, but not gymnastics.) - If you do something long enough you will get better and,
- All it takes to improve is to try harder.
These are myths from a scientific standpoint. But the vast majority of people believe them – especially shooters who are looking for the magic bullet.
In his book “Peak,” Anders Ericsson explains that skill is a sequence of events in the brain that have been repeated enough that the brain has chunked them together and can fire the circuit without thinking about it. He refers to them as “mental representations” (MRs). The more skillful you are at something, the more mental representations you have due to the repetition of firing the circuits.
We have spent five or six Coaching Hours talking about MRs and deliberate practice and how shooters don’t do deliberate practice; they just go out and shoot, and that is why they don’t get any better. Deliberate practice exploits your weaknesses and sets a course to deliberately make them better and better.
Join the Knowledge Vault and you can listen to and read the Coaching Hours to learn more about how this applies to your shooting.
