We’re big fans of training and practice, but you must ask yourself what you’re training for. If you don’t have a particular goal, what’s the point? Yes, shooting is fun, but you generally won’t get much better at it (or at anything) if you don’t have a plan you’re working to get to a goal.
The answer to the question “How bad is it not to have any training goals?” is: It’s not terrible, but setting goals will help you tremendously.
Training goals give you something to work toward, but not just any goal will do. Goals should be reasonable, specific and measurable. “I want to be a better shooter” is a vague, broad goal that doesn’t actually let you track any progress. We all want to be better shooters, but how will you know if you’re getting better if you’re not measuring your speed or accuracy somehow? Better goals:
“I want to keep 80 percent of my shots in an 8-inch circle.”
“I want to be able to draw the gun and put three shots in the body cavity of a humanoid target in less than three seconds.”
“I want to consistently shoot 1 MOA at 1,000 yards.”
“I want to take my average skeet score from 18x25 to 20x25” or, even better, “I want to break high 1 at my chosen hold point consistently.”
These goals are specific and measurable—you can track your progress very easily, so you know when you’re improving. They give you something specific to work on, so you know exactly what you need to do at each training session to get closer to your goal. Having a plan when you show up to the range is tremendously beneficial. Without a plan, you’ll just be throwing lead and not learning anything. And without goals, it’s hard to make that plan.
Good training goals also need to be reasonable. “I want to win the Steel Challenge World Championship” is a specific goal, but it’s certainly not reasonable if you’ve never shot before. You’ll need to achieve a lot of smaller, incremental goals before the World Championship becomes a possibility for you. As one sporting clays instructor put it, “You can’t lose 50 pounds until you first lose 5 pounds. And you can’t be a world champion until you win some local shoots.” I’ll add that you can’t win local shoots until you hit some of your more incremental training goals along the way that refine your game.
Training is great, but training with a plan and specific, measurable, reasonable goals in mind is much better. And the cool thing is that no matter what your goals are, just the act of setting goals and working to achieve them will improve your game and your life as a whole. As Zig Ziglar once said, “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”
