Failing and Failing Better

For most of you, facing a long, crossing target will make you a little uncomfortable on your first attempt because you have no expectation of hitting it. You simply call for the bird and the gun magically goes out in front. Then the trigger is pulled and the target breaks. You were shocked, relieved, and surprised all at the same time. You were amazed at how far the gun was in front of the target when you pulled the trigger and hammered the target!

So, we have established the fact that you can break the target and you know what the lead was because you saw how big it was. So, you should be able to repeat it, right? Try as hard as you can, you just cannot put the gun out in front of the target where you know it needs to be!

This happens to everyone as they begin to attempt longer shots that take more lead than they are comfortable with and much slower muzzle movement.

We’ve mentioned that all your skill is in your memory and is filed away in different compartments of similar instances in your long-term memory. You cannot visualize anything you have never seen or done, and your brain cannot do anything unless it first has a picture in its memory of what you’re asking it to do.

Like a stumbling baby, in the beginning of learning to do anything, failure is not only inevitable but very necessary in the learning process, which is more about failing and trying again and failing better. After failing better and better, eventually the brain fires the circuit in the right sequence for the first time. Like magic, it happens and then it happens again and again and again until you get too involved in what is happening and you fail again.

After this sequence happens over and over, you will begin to get better at correcting what went wrong because you have memory of what it felt like when it came together the right way.