Target Practise - The art of setting goals and missing a few

We are bit like Stobaeus Archer. We must do everything we can to hit the target but happiness does not depend on whether you hit the target. What matters is shooting well. These maketh the qualities of becoming an expert archer. As there are number of factors that influence a good shot, it is understood as a special kind of art in which expertise does not always guarantee success.

“Archery is still a matter of life and death to the extent that it is a contest of the archer with himself”. The goal, then, is self-transformation.

Watching a true expert can make this art appear effortless. The more you try to achieve the result the more you might fail. The PARADOX. Sometimes, the less one cares about hitting the target, the more smooth and relaxed one’s shot will be, which paradoxically will increase one’s likelihood of hitting the target. So not caring about reaching the goal will in fact improve one’s chances of reaching it. Shoot me! Get it.

To get away from the philosophy is the a shift in the very goal itself. The real goal should not be hitting the target at all but developing the expertise/internal practise to do so under the variable shifts in the elements.

Goal setting is about focus, aim, skill, consistency, discipline, order. And being in the MOMENT.

Archery demands concentration, composure, vision, confidence, strength, belief.

Goal setting demands introspection, logic and a lot of dare, —and, in practice, concentration, composure, vision, strength, and belief. A link

If you have never done archery, then this should be an interesting introduction to the basis of hitting the bullseye.

1. Replenish your energy

Archery is a mind game. If you are distracted, tense or tired, your limited concentration will lead to you taking a poor shot. The converse is true.

2. Develop the Skills for resilience

The exception to 1. The better one becomes at archery, the more able one is to shoot well under adverse conditions. The game of achieving your goals is mental but also a matter of skill—and skill is a a matter of time, patience, grit; and discipline.

3. Develop the skill for the goal

The foundation of success is just that. The foundation. The technical nuances to make something understood or work. Keep learning, keep shooting. Get this right and everything else becomes that little bit easier to get right. Get it wrong, and everything else becomes that little bit harder to get right. But harder isn’t the problem, here; the problem without a foundation, there is nothing to build upon, no strength, no place to return to. When we learn to walk ...the first thing we learn is to position our feet.

4. Be Honest with yourself

It is not enough to know what you want. But to know why you want it. So get into your head and reassess their roots. Be blunt and truthful to yourself.

Whose goal is it anway ? ‘Does this ambition come from internal or external?’, ‘What will an achievement do for me, my family, the world?’, ‘Is this a moral goal? , ‘Is this something I can actually work on?’, ‘Is this a fantasy?’ and ‘Is this what I really want?’.

With these tough questions , some of your goals may need to be thrown out the window and entirely reformed. Perhaps you may find renewed vigour and focus for any goals you may already have in mind. The point is, you want to get your foundation strong and these question will allow you to do just that.

 5. Firing the Arrow

You have the skill. Your feet is in position. And your motives still make sense to you. Now what?

Well... simply just let go. As simple as this sounds, it also requires much attention and practice to get right; but this attention and practice is prolonged and made significantly more painful if the foundation is not right: if your position (starting with your feet) is not optimal.

6. Understand Newton's Laws and the Laws of Perspectives

When your target is far away, you have to aim higher.

If you are going to set goals, set high goals, be ambitious, aim for the stars.

Newton gave us the reasons why in mathematical jargon. For the rest of us ..every shot will feel the pull of earth’s gravity. If you aim directly at a long-range target in archery, your arrow will fall short. Unless you're God with poundage bow.

If you aim for the stars with your goals, however short you fall, you’re still likely to fall in a very, very good place.

The Law of Perspectives. I made that up. If the target is closer, then you need not aim as high, but you can therefore go after it with more precision, intent and seriousness. The high poundage bow to competency and experience: if the target is long-range, but you have a good skill set and/or considerable experience with such targets, then you need not aim as high and can instead go at your target with a more determined, narrow and linear focus.

7. Discipline. Rinse. Repeat. Revaluate. Reality (Dark Seid)

The benefit from consistent, disciplined application removes the element of luck—by teaching you, slowly and painfully, how to distinguish between good luck, and skill.

It is quite easy to think than we are better than we are.

Reasons : basic overconfidence in our ability to do anything, not to mention something ‘as simple as shooting an arrow’.

Optimism and excitement, which tends to be present when we start something new, actually upgrades our performance, and creates what can best be thought of as the illusion of competency. Double edged sword that.

Comfort - the experience of a good run in a comfortable environment—familiar, distraction free, confuses us...the sense that we are good. This is completely normal and in fact necessary; overconfidence allows us to get by in life—to develop skills, meet new people, build business, and so forth.

Limitations of the environment

If you are in a comfortable, repetitive, and relatively easy-going; conditions, poor adherence to principles is easily disguised by excitement and the lack of challenge—and so the illusion of competency becomes stronger. viz. My hours in the gym attest

The dark side (seid hehe) is that when confronted with the truth a the experience is not pleasant, and can mean throwing in the towel It is understandable, therefore, that we will go out of our way to avoid such an experience. But this is the antithesis of growth; in removing the truth and pain element it also removes the learning element, without which we cannot develop.

Oh! And Some luck doesn't hurt.

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