Brennan Stephans June – Have you ever looked back at your archery career, at the lessons learned along the way?
This can be very beneficial and can help you to grow. Sharing them with others can also help newer archers to grasp archery better and the deeper lessons and benefits.
Archery has been one of the most beneficial endeavors I have ever been involved in. I have been shooting for eight years and have enjoyed a successful career. My career has had its fair share of ups and downs, but throughout it all I have learned countless lessons that can be carried on past my archery career.
Dedication and Discipline
Dedication and discipline are essential to being successful in both archery and life. In archery, my scores increased greatly when I began to shoot every day. This takes dedication. Whatever you pursue, whether it is archery or something else, you must be completely dedicated to it in order to become more than average. This dedication must form into an actionable discipline. You must dedicate time each day to something you want to get better at.
Excuses are wasted words
What do we do when things go wrong. Everyone at some point tries to come up with some “reason” things did not go wrong that they “could not control”. When things do not go as planned take ownership of it at have the attitude of “It’s my fault. I know what I did wrong, and it won’t happen again”. Now there are certain issues like broken equipment that you might not be able to control, but even then, you probably could have maintained or checked it better. Don’t focus on what is wrong, identify the issue then get after fixing it.
Do not focus on past mistakes
Every archer can remember a tournament where they had one bad arrow, and they could not move past it. The ghost of this arrow seemed to haunt your mind on every release afterword. After you released the arrow, you could not change it. If you think “I can not afford to do that again” the chances, are it will happen again. If you do something and you are plagued by my negative thoughts and low expectations, you most likely will not perform to your best abilities.
Your Past Performance is not who you are.
So, you’ve won 30 tournaments? You should be proud, but you are only as good as your next tournament. Do not rest on past accomplishments, push for one more. People preach about moderation, but truthfully the best do not know moderation. If you want to count yourself among the best keep pushing. I am not saying past tournaments do not mean anything, but you should not be focused on the past. Your best should always be in front of you. You have a choice in everything you do: “Do I try to push myself to be better or do I remain the same”.
Brennan Stephens is a 2023 student contributor.
