Practice and Compete with the Same Intensity
Every shot you take in practice and in a tournament, big or small, has to be with a hundred percent commitment to the plan and your routines.
When you’re congruent and in the zone, effort is optimized. You’re not stressed. You’re in control of the target. You stop trying and, through determination, you begin to do. Your timing takes over and early to the breakpoint becomes easy and the targets float. The plans become more obvious. You’re not rushed, and things that happen aren’t either good or bad. They just are.
The concept of practicing in the zone is just as important as performing in the zone. You’ve got to be congruent. That’s huge. Until all you do in shooting is done with the same intensity, you will never know how to optimize your performance.
Most shooters approach haphazardly and are constantly trying to fix something. They have no basic concept. They’re just going through the motions and hoping to do well. Because of this, they’re constantly trying something someone else does, hoping they can do it. They’re like five-year-olds playing soccer with three balls or a two-headed dog trying to get through a picket fence. They’re fooled by their own conclusions based on what happened the last time they shot and what they hit and what they missed.
Ninety percent of the people that do this game in a semi-competitive (and some in a more competitive) way have peaks and valleys in their commitment to do something. They never play out on the edge. They’re afraid to get on the edge. They’re absolutely afraid. As a result, they think what they missed last tournament or the last time they practiced is their problem. But their problem is they have a fluctuating intensity of commitment and passion on every shot. Therefore, what they think they know they don’t know.
If you want to optimize this journey, it’s so important that every shot you take in practice is the same as it is on game day. Be selfish with every shot that you take. Practice or a tournament is an investment in your shooting future. Everybody wants to get there fast. Nobody ever wants to take their time getting somewhere.
You know you’re really relaxed when you can enjoy the scenery on a detour. But nobody wants to take their time getting somewhere. They all want to get there fast. If ever there was a fast way to get somewhere, every time you close the gun, do it with a routine. Every time you call pull, do every shot you have like it’s the last one you’re ever going to be able to do. You want to enjoy it. You want to feel it. You want to do it at an intensity to where they all begin to mean something.
Now let’s talk about the other side of this coin: the intensity. The other side of it is you’re creating a concept of how easy it is for you to compete. Because eventually when you go into a competition, it’s got to be just like another practice day. You just got somebody keeping score for you. You’re out there doing what you always do.
Practice has got to mimic game day. If you can bring the intensity level up in practice, then competition is not a letdown, but it’s certainly not a traumatic experience.
I’ve been doing a lot of speaking lately, and when I go do a rehearsal, I’m going to rehearse that speech several times; but I’m going to do it once a day for the last three days. Only once. And I’m more interested in my pauses than I am in anything else. The words will come; but knowing when to pause, knowing when to get excited and knowing when to raise the voice level, and when to let it down is critical. And the more you’ve done it in rehearsal, the easier it is for you to do it when the lights are on you and the microphone is on.
It’s the same thing in competing. If every time you do it, you do it with the same intensity, there is a huge benefit. Everything becomes the same.
Now you’ve changed your concept of both practice and tournaments. Now your concept is they are the same. You’re excited to be there. You’re fearful enough to pay attention, but it’s like you to be early in the breakpoint. It’s like you to never be rushed. It really is like you to be that way.
You’re constantly playing farther and farther in front of these birds, keeping your nose on that bird, and you’ve practiced that religiously.
But when you can change your concept of what competition is, it makes the butterflies go away. Or it turns the butterflies into a tool for you. It’s an alert that you need to get ready because you’re getting ready to have a good performance.
You’re getting ready to show people what your game is about. Time to go to work.
The people that don’t do that never develop a concept, and the problem is they have no concept; therefore, they see little or no improvement. You, on the other hand, must develop concepts. Shoot every shot with a routine, same intensity every time.
If you hit it, enjoy the hit. If you miss it, learn from it and move on. That’s why you must have a concept of who you are, and who you want to be, and begin to develop that concept. Do not give up. It will not be easy. Learn to do the hard things easily, gracefully, and efficiently. Improvement is there for the taking if only the effort will be invested.
Every shot you take must be an investment in your shooting future.
This is an excerpt from the January 2012 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.
