What We Aim At, Part II: Pulling The Trigger

Despite all the commotion and the chaos, his strained voice stood out from among all others. It was almost pure desperation.

Pull the trigger! he shouted at me. I knew he was right, but something inside me wanted to wait for the perfect shot. Just one more second, I thought, but by then it was too late. The opportunity was gone.

After that, he didn’t have to say anything, I could tell by his body language that I had let him down. His arms flew up in frustration and then fell nearly lifeless by his side as he paced back and forth on the sidelines. My high school soccer coach had told me to take the shot — to pull the trigger — but I had hesitated, the whistle blew, and I squandered the chance to score. Something inside me had fought back against the pleading voice of my coach. Was it the fear of failure or the pursuit of perfection? Probably a little of both. I knew what my target was and where, that was obvious, I just didn’t do anything about it when I had the chance.

Full Effect

In What We Aim At, Part I: Be Sure Of Your Target we talked about the importance of having a target — or a goal — in the first place. Because if you don’t have a target, you will, by default, be aiming at nothing. And if you aim at nothing you will hit it every time. But before we get too far, be sure and go back and read Part I if you haven’t already so that you get the full tactical effect.

As I was…

Align Your Sights

Having a target is one thing, hitting it is quite another.

Identifying a target alone is not enough. Praying and spraying is for Hollywood action movies, not the real world. Precision shooting comes from developing a sight picture by aligning your sights on the target and is the surest way to increase your odds of hitting the mark.

Assuming, of course, that your sights are in alignment with the bore.

The Habits

Habits are like your gun sights, and the bore is like your core values. If they are not in alignment they will only serve to frustrate your efforts because your rounds won’t go where you think they should.

Not all habits are good habits and not all good habits will help you reach your goal. Just like sighting in your rifle takes some trial, error, and adjustment, so too must you develop habits that coincide with your values and then fine-tune those habits over time.

Once your habits line up with your values, all you need to do is direct them toward your goal by pulling the trigger.

Pull The Trigger

Hockey icon Wayne Gretzky said, You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, and he would know.  Gretzky is the all-time leading goal scorer in the NHL and he only scored 17.6% of the time. That means he didn’t score with 82.4% of the shots he took.  That’s pretty wild.  A clear target and sights in perfect alignment amount to a whole lot of nothing if you never pull the trigger. In order to hit your goals you must take action.

My high school soccer coach was famous for yelling at us from the sidelines to pull the trigger! when he wanted us to shoot. I felt like most of those outbursts were directed at me because, as a perfectionist, I always wanted to wait and take the perfect shot. But the truth is, there’s no such thing. My coach was usually right because he had the perspective and the experience that I did not. He knew that taking the shot was the thing that counted. The more shots you take the more likely you are to score.

Take Action

When you’re on the range, especially while shooting on the move, you’ll never have the perfect sight picture. There will always be movement. But using that as an excuse to never pull the trigger is just that — an excuse — and a recipe for failure. The best shooters in the world have the same problems as you and me, they just train so that they can take their shots in spite of all that movement. They have learned to control their breathing, their body, and their mind so they can press the trigger at the very moment the sights align with the target.

There is no such thing as the perfect shot and there will always be some amount of movement and uncertainty. Letting fear get between you and your goal will only ensure that you never reach it. Action always beats reaction, or worse, no action.

Follow Through

A good shooter has two sight pictures for every one shot — one before the shot is taken and then another one after recoil. This is something commonly referred to as follow through. Following through increases accuracy for each and every shot. When you press that trigger, recoil is going to happen — there’s nothing you can do to stop it. You have to let the recoil happen and then simply follow through by realigning your sights on the target.

Be Resilient

Taking action on your goals will result in some form of recoil, whether it be push-back from the naysayers, the voices in your head of Fear and Doubt, or even from experiencing success itself. Resilience is the result of following through in the face of resistance, over and over again. It is the act of continuously realigning your habits on your goals so that you’re ready to act on the next opportunity.

Hit The Target

If you learn to identify your target, align your sights, press the trigger, and follow through you will hit what you aim at on the range or in a gunfight. Doing the upfront work will cause the result to take care of itself. After all, you can’t alter the course of your bullet once it has left the barrel.

Achieve Your Goals

In the same way, if you identify your goals, develop the right habits, take action, and are resilient in the face of resistance, it will make success inevitable.

At the risk of sounding cliché (which isn’t very tactical) we need to remember that success is not a destination, it is a journey. It is not about perfection, it’s about progress. I, for one, certainly have not arrived, I’m only getting started.

Here’s something to consider for success on the range and in life:

The Fundamentals For Inevitable Success

1. Identify your target — write down your goals
2. Align your sights — develop the right habits
3. Press the trigger — take action
4. Follow through — be resilient

__________________________

• Are you the kind of person with no goal in mind who prays and sprays?
• Or are you the perfectionist who never takes the shot?
• Do you let fear make your decisions for you?
• Or let carelessness run away with you?

__________________________

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