Learning to shoot a handgun takes you out of your comfort zone. It involves both physical and mental risk. The physical risk of shooting is that you can be seriously injured or you could seriously injure someone else if you do not handle your gun properly. You may have to use your gun to protect yourself and that may involve injury or death for someone else. If you cannot handle your gun with skill when you need to use it to defend yourself, you may be seriously injured or even killed.
The mental risk involved with learning to shoot is the embarrassment and frustration of not being able to pass your qualification.
You can manage the physical risk by learning and practicing safe gunhandling skills. At first you may feel awkward, uncertain, or even scared but these feelings will diminish as you practice. In time you will understand how your gun works and how to handle it safely. An instructor or range officer will guide you as you learn, but you are responsible for learning gunhandling skills. You are the one who controls how you interact with the gun in your hand.
You learn by doing, not just watching, listening or reading. The only way to become comfortable handling your gun is to practice. With practice, you will discover how well you can perform each skill. Each success builds your confidence.
Managing the mental risk involved in shooting is hard work. You have to train yourself to stay mentally focused and concentrate on what your body (hands, arms, shoulders, torso) must do to make an accurate shot. It is easy to become distracted and let your body go on autopilot, overruling what your mind knows is correct procedure. Unless you have practiced well and developed good muscle memory, your body may react physically in anticipation of recoil, moving the front sight and causing you to miss.
You will encounter many speed bumps such as lack of information, guns that are too big or too small, recoil that is punishing, rainy days, poor instruction, headaches or stomach aches. These are things that clutter your mind. Do not use them as excuses for why you miss the target! Stay focused, keep the clutter out of your mind and you can do it!
Invest in yourself. You can decide what the risk will bring you; the opportunity to succeed or to fail. The choice is yours.
It is your responsibility to learn how to hit the target accurately. During qualifications, you are required to fire a number of accurate shots in a given period of time. If you miss too many, you fail. If you take too long, you fail. Get the clutter out of your mind and focus on what it takes to make an accurate hit.
Qualifications are hard! Knowing that a qualification is coming up can make you feel nervous, apprehensive or even sick to your stomach. Your thoughts may be filled with the same phrase repeating over and over in your mind, “What if I fail? What if I fail?”
Why do we tend to say “What if I fail?” instead of “I’m going to succeed, I’m going to succeed!” It’s easy for your mind to get stuck with “I’m going to fail.” Sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that everyone, including ourselves, is expecting us to fail, so it is actually easier to face the failure than face the success. If you failed once in the past, your mind thinks it is logical you will fail again. It is easy to get used to failure. In a way, it is more comfortable to fail.
Success can be scary! If you succeed, then there will be an expectation from others that you will always succeed and that adds a great deal of pressure! Someone else may make fun of you if you succeed. They might ask you what took you so long to figure it out. You might even shoot better than someone else. They might think you are showing off. So what! You must not let negative thoughts about the consequences of success hinder you from doing your best. Success is risky but gives you the opportunity to have confidence in yourself!
The risk in learning to shoot faster is that you will miss even more. Accept that you will have misses as you push yourself. Accuracy comes first, speed will follow. Stay focused in the present moment. If you are thinking about the shot you missed, you may not notice what your body is doing when you press the trigger for your next shot. There is nothing you can do about the miss, just let it go. Don’t punish yourself when you miss. Self punishment gets in the way of success.
Shooting from longer distances during a qualification is similar. Remind yourself to align the sights and continue to align the sights while you press the trigger smoothly. Stay focused on the challenge of hitting at 15 or even 25 yards. Focus on the front sight. Stop thinking of how many misses you have had in the past.
You may worry that if you shoot well once, it will be expected of you every time you go to the range. You may doubt your ability to repeat your performance in three or six months. You might think “what if it is only because I managed to hold it together once, but the pressure of repeating the success is overwhelming and I will fail.”
If you continue to fear success, you will certainly bring on failure. Know what you have to do, be prepared and be well satisfied with yourself when you succeed.
It would be nice if we could “wish” ourselves to success. Instead, we have to step up and take the risk that brings us opportunity. If you are willing to take the risk and you have studied and practiced the skills you need, you will give yourself the opportunity for success, competence and confidence! No one else can do it for you.
Copyright © 2006 by DTI Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.