This article is a summary of an episode that I did on The Journey Podcast. Next to each section title below is a link that will take you directly to a part of the episode where I am referencing what is in that respective section, or you can listen to the full episode here (or anywhere you listen to podcasts):
The Journey Podcast | S1:E3 – Understanding the Mental Component to Optimizing Practice
The purpose of this article is to address the single biggest roadblock that prevents shooters from improving. It’s an issue I’ve seen plague every single student I’ve worked with over the last 15+ years — regardless of skill level, experience, or natural ability. It’s also the easiest thing to change if you understand it, yet it feels impossible to overcome when you don’t.
This issue has nothing to do with technique, mechanics, or even which coach you work with. Instead, it’s about something that is rarely discussed but fundamentally determines how well you progress as a shooter — your perspective on learning and value placement during your practice. Without recognizing how your brain processes shooting movements and how it categorizes success, you will inevitably find yourself stuck in a cycle of reinforcing bad habits, preventing real progress.
The Psychological Trap of Learning to Shoot – Listen to More Here
If you’ve ever known what you did wrong, knew how to fix it, and yet still couldn’t execute the correct movement on the next pair, you’ve encountered the psychological conflict I’m talking about. On the surface, it sounds insane — after all, we have complete control over our bodies. If you consciously tell yourself to move a certain way, shouldn’t you be able to do it?
Here’s the problem: shooting is not a Closed Loop Skill like tying your shoes. When you tie your shoes, you get continuous real-time feedback — you can feel the laces in your hands and adjust as you go. Shooting, on the other hand, is an Open Loop Skill, meaning once you start the movement, you no longer have the ability to make adjustments in real-time. By the time your brain processes that you need to adjust, the shot is already over.
Because of this, the way we learn and refine shooting movements is completely different from how we learn most other physical skills. The brain doesn’t naturally prioritize movement quality — it prioritizes results. That’s where we run into the biggest issue: you can break a target with bad movement just as easily as you can miss one with good movement.
How Dopamine Reinforces Bad Habits – Listen to More Here
At the core of learning any motor skill is dopamine, the neurotransmitter that categorizes movements as either ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Every time you execute a shot, your brain logs that movement pattern as a “packet” of information — essentially a set of instructions for your body to follow. But here’s where things get tricky:
If you break the target, you get a dopamine release — your brain logs that movement packet as “good” and saves it for later.
If you miss, no dopamine is released, and that movement packet is discarded as “bad.”
The problem? If your entire focus is on breaking targets, then you are only reinforcing the movements that happen to result in a hit, regardless of whether they were correct. If your movement was off, but you still broke the target, your brain still saves it as a “successful” movement, and it will become part of your default, subconscious execution over time.
Now, think about what happens during practice: most shooters place all their value on their score, meaning they are unintentionally training their brain to prioritize outcomes over movement quality. The more you do this, the more ingrained those incorrect movement patterns become, and eventually, your bad habits become automatic. This is how shooters plateau.
The Importance of Value Placement in Practice – Listen to More Here
Here’s the paradox: in order to get better at shooting, you actually have to temporarily get worse.
Why? Because in order to retrain your brain, you have to place more value on executing the correct movement than you do on whether the target breaks. This means shifting your attention away from the target and instead focusing on controlling your movement — even if it means missing more in the short term.
But this is where most shooters fall into a trap:
They start focusing on movement.
They miss a few targets.
They immediately shift back to focusing on breaking the target.
This cycle repeats endlessly, preventing any real progress. The uncomfortable truth is that to develop the correct movements, you need to sacrifice short-term performance.
A Practical Example: How to Break the Cycle – Listen to More Here
One of the simplest ways to demonstrate this principle in a lesson is by asking a student to call for a target without a shell in the gun. Every single time, they suddenly execute the correct movement perfectly.
Why? Because in that moment, there is no external result to value — no broken or missed target to influence dopamine release. Their focus shifts entirely to controlling their movement, and as a result, their execution becomes flawless.
This is the exact mindset you need to bring into practice. Your goal should not be to break as many targets as possible — it should be to move as correctly as possible.
The Three Pillars of Effective Learning – Listen to More Here
To successfully retrain your brain, you need to build a structured approach to practice that ensures your focus is in the right place. There are three essential components that must be present every time you step in the stand:
Sensory Perception (Seeing): Before calling for the target, you need to assign your attention to a specific aspect of your shot. What do you want to see? Where do you want to focus your vision? The more deliberate you are, the better your brain will process and reinforce correct visual information.
Physical Movement (Controlling): A portion of your attention must be placed on how you want your body to move. This isn’t about analyzing your shot afterward — it’s about actively controlling each micro-movement in real time, ensuring that what you feel matches what you intended.
Proprioception (Feeling): Over time, combining the first two components develops proprioceptive awareness — your subconscious ability to know exactly where your body and gun are in space. This is what allows elite shooters to execute movements with precision without having to think about them consciously.
Final Thoughts: The Secret to Continuous Improvement – Listen to More Here
I’ll leave you with one of the most important lessons you can apply to your shooting:
Be the best that you can be at everything that requires no talent.
It takes talent to break targets, but it takes zero talent to focus on controlling your movement, setting clear visual goals, and properly evaluating your shots. If you commit to doing these things every time you practice, you will break free from the cycle that holds most shooters back and finally see the improvements you’ve been chasing.
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