It's Not Always About Winning

This past weekend was the Washington State Mounted Shooting Championships.  My normal goal is to shoot clean.  Clean is fast and fast is what wins.  However, this weekend my goal was something different.  I wanted to go faster and trust my horse.  Copper and I have been practicing really hard and I knew I could do those things at home but in a competition setting everything is different.
You see, I have always been concerned with shooting clean.  A miss to me is not acceptable and to be honest a little embarrassing. I have a reputation for not missing very much and I wanted to keep it.  However, I'm never going to move up the ranks and win if I don't take some risks.  So that's what I did this weekend.  I decided to not care if I missed.  I decided that going faster was more important.  This change in mindset was difficult for me, but guess what?  It worked!   I had 4 misses the first day with no chance of winning.  However, my raw times were A LOT faster then I normally run, and that is saying something!  Having this weekend to push myself and my horse had made a huge difference in my confidence.  Everything came together on day two of competition and I didn't miss a single balloon.  It felt great and I'm still a little high off the adrenaline rush!


I also got to carry a flag in the grand entry and that always puts a big smile on my face!  

Do you have a goal for this season?  What is it?  How are you going to achieve it?  Feel free to share below.  I love hearing from you!
 
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