Needing to win is sometimes a good thing. For a small number of people, it’s the competitive drive that gets them to the podium. For the rest of us, it often gets in our way. Holding onto the desire to beat someone can often make you screw-up. You see, it’s just another element that can pull us out of the moment. What I am talking about is distraction. It’s a distraction that pulls your conscious focus off of what you're doing. Let’s face it, focus is the difference between a tight group and a larger spread. Actually the whole mental game really boils down to focus and distraction. For example, you’re at full draw, and this shot is important. You need to make up two points on this end, and you have an opportunity; the window is open, and what happens is you start to think about it. This pulls your attention out of the shot that you need to make. The lack of focus causes you to miss.
Some may say this is why we train for these moments, hoping that your repetition and muscle memory will pull you through at the last minute. Most of the time though, it will let you down. Why leave it up to chance? The trick is not to let desires, needs, or emotions get in our way. How we do this we do this by finding out why we have these desires, needs, and emotions.
You see the need to win comes from programming. We are not born this way. Somewhere along the line, we learned how to be competitive. We either experienced it in a simple way like a board game that you needed to win or maybe we came from a big family and had to compete for your parents' attention. However this information came to life, it could be the reason you are overly competitive today--you are so focused on winning, that you let yourself be distracted by the emotion at a key moment.
The point of going to a competition is to win and to learn more about yourself. This is the intention. All an archer is showing up to do is to shoot a perfect shot over and over. This is the goal; if your shots are all perfect, you will win the competition. You don’t have to spend precious energy thinking about how much you want to win. All we need to do is to execute that shot without distraction.The problem is that there are so many things in our minds that pull our focus away. These personal distractions are compiled of subconscious information that was collected at a young age. Stories and ideas that our minds held on to because at the time it seemed important. Stories like needing to win.
One of the best ways to address these stories and ideas is through hypnosis. Hypnosis works directly in the subconscious mind. It gives us a vehicle to find and address the hidden stories and ideas that shape the way we behave. Once the information is changed, the behaviors such as needing to win are no longer distracting, freeing up our attention so we can increase our focus on what we need to do to win. If this resonates with you, reach out today.