I love going to shoot my bow. I love spending time outside and relaxing. I have a lot of reasons that I like going to shoot my bow.
What about you? What are your reasons for shooting?
What about all the times that you’re not feeling like doing anything for months? What’s with that? I don’t care who you are, the longer you spend away from shooting your bow, the worse you’ll get. So how do you get motivated to spend time practicing?
He’s having fun now, let’s keep that motivation going!
My steps on how to get motivated
Step 1.
I never practice. My whole life, practice has been something negative. I HAVE to practice so I can be good at something and most of the time that means it sucks and is no fun. Have you ever wondered why it’s so hard to get kids to practice? It’s because it’s no fun.
Instead, I just go shoot my bow. I don’t attach any sense of practice to it. I might decide to do something that looks like practice out at the range, but I just go out to have fun. I have no intention of forcing some kind of practice that ends up creating a negative view of going to the range, backyard, or wherever.
Step 2.
I change the amount of time I shoot. In fact, it probably is over an hour at a time, but that’s just how long it takes me to go through the 3d target course. If things just don’t feel right, or I lose more than 3 arrows, I quit and go home. I don’t want to have to deal with a bad day when I go shoot my bow to relax and feel better. Whether it’s 5 minutes or 2 hours. If things start going downhill a lot, then I take a break. If they continue to go downhill, then I stop for the day.
Step 3.
I joined an archery club and we had a weekly meetup to go shoot the 3D course. It was a fun time to hang out and go shoot. It helped me shoot more often and that made me shoot better. I wasn’t going to practice, I was going to hang out with friends. If I had a day where I just wanted to go by myself, then it’s no problem. It was a lot of fun to go with all the other people. I learned the most during that weekly meetup. More than anywhere else.
Step 4.
Reward yourself for your efforts. Hit your first bulls-eye? Go get some ice cream. There’s no point in trying to be stoic and pretend that you shouldn’t be happy or excited with your progress. If you are trying to get your child interested in the sport, you could make it a ritual of going to the range and shooting and then having some special parent child time while getting a coke or ice cream.
Step 5.
What makes you feel good? Is it shooting, being outside, alone or with friends. Take the things that you’ve found to enjoy the most and repeat it. Most people don’t even consider of creating a happy environment. You can do the same with your hobbies and interests. If shooting with a group is what makes you happiest, then find that and keep going. Eventually you’ll just be going to hang out with friends.
Those are my 5 steps on how to get motivated to practice.
I know that there are days were you just feel like you need to shoot, but you really don’t want to. That happens to everyone for almost everything.
Find what part of archery makes you happy and focus on that. I love it and I love many of the benefits I’ve found out of the sport. If you take a bit of time and find out what part you like, then you can shoot more often and have more fun and you’ll never even think you were practicing to begin with.