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How To Build Shooting Confidence For Firearms

What Is Holding You Back? Tips from a Navy Seal on becoming a better, more confident shooter. One of the most frequently asked questions I get is: How to build shooting for confidence firearms?

Confidence is like a muscle, if you work it, it’s going to grow. And becoming a more confident person is easy if you know what to do. Here are five techniques that lay it out and make it easy 

How To Build Shooting Confidence For Firearms

1. ​PRACTICE

​By simply practicing whatever you want to gain more confidence in, you’re going to get more confident in it. This is because of the confidence-competence loop, a psychological phenomenon that shows that the more competent you get in something, the more confident you get at it. Say you notice you’re shooting a little better, you’re going to feel more confident in it, and then as you become more competent (you’re shooting even better), you are going to think, “Yeah, I am pretty good at this,” and that’s going to start a snowball effect where you get better and better and more confident as time goes on.

Chris reloading a pistol

​2. POSITIVE SELF-TALK

​This is sometimes called affirmations, and I know some people don’t like this. They don’t want to tell themselves that everything’s great, but in fact we are the stories that we tell ourselves. If you’re telling yourself you’re not a good shooter, that is going to keep you from becoming a good shooter. If you’re telling yourself that you’re not confident, guess what? You’re not going to be confident. Why not just change the story that you tell yourself? Better yet, be confident enough to actually look yourself in the eyes in the mirror and tell yourself you’re confident! Go out there and start talking to yourself. I’m telling you, it’ll work.

​Confidence is like a muscle, if you work it, it’s going to grow.

 

3. ​EXERCISE

Physical exercise is going to pump you up. It’s going to get the blood flowing through your body and no matter what is ailing you, exercise is going to make you feel better. When you feel better, guess what happens? You feel more confident! That’s how to build shooting confidence in firearms.

4. ​TAKE CHANCES

​Fear can keep you from doing what you need to do. If you fear or find yourself uncomfortable with something, force yourself to have that experience. Maybe you’ll discover that your fear was misplaced, and whatever you feared isn’t so bad. Now you’ll be able to build confidence from that experience. Face your demons, take chances, and you will become more confident.

Chris Sajnog aiming using a rifle.

​5. KEEP PROMISES TO YOURSELF

​This is the biggest one of the five techniques. We all make promises to ourselves every single day. We wake up in the morning and say, “I’m going to exercise today,” or “I’m going to meditate today,” and then later on you run out of time and you don’t exercise or meditate. Now you’ve just lied to yourself and you’ll remember that lie. If you can simply keep the promises you say to yourself, you’re going to become so much more confident—you’ll be amazed. Keep those promises to yourself, and I promise it is going to skyrocket your confidence.

These are my top five techniques for how to build shooting confidence  for firearms. What helps you establish and maintain confidence? Let me know in the comments.


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