Adjusting Your Expectations

Back in 2021, a shooter we were helping told us that exchanging had really helped him, because it made him look at him game. “It made me look at what was going on outside of sporting clays in my life,” he said.

This shooter had six or eight life-changing things that occurred to him in less than a year. And like our student Dean Olson said, you’ve got to have your family life, your business life and your personal life in balance.

Well, his personal life was out of balance. I’m not saying it was bad. It’s just that things were happening that were out of his control. And he was having to adjust. Not to mention no ammo, and he was only shooting about a third as much as he always did. So his expectation was to shoot like he always had been, but he was only shooting a third as much as he shot before COVID.

It was just talking about it out in the open that got him to realize that life had gotten in the way of his approach – but he did not change his goals or expectations. He had many things that has changed in his life. And he had only gotten to practice maybe a third of what was normal for him.

Things happen in your life that change what you can do. We’ve all gone through that. Everybody experienced that with COVID. You immediately have to strip yourself of preconceived notions, assemble and analyze all the facts, make the decision that seems most honest, and stick to it.

You’ve got to adjust your goals and your expectations. And this shooter, being the champion that he is, saw that and immediately adjusted. I expect nothing but good things to come for him in the near future.

This is an excerpt from the October 2021 Coaching Hour podcast. You can listen to it and read a written transcript, along with more than 20 years of archived episodes with your Knowledge Vault membership.