There is a saying that goes; I’ve learned more from my mistakes than my successes. Mistakes can help you improve because they force you to reexamine what you thought you were doing right against the reality of your results. But make the same mistake enough times, and it becomes a bad habit that must be unlearned, and that is the difficult part. This article will discuss six of the most common bad shooting habits and give you some pointers on breaking them.

It’s a Process

A habit can be a good thing, like always checking the chamber on every gun you pick up. But if it is a bad thing, it becomes a bad habit. Bad habits are usually acquired by being self-taught or receiving poor shooting training. A major factor in developing a bad shooting habit is focusing on the result rather than the process. Sometimes we get so hung up on the desired result that we forget that the journey is often more important than the destination. Shooting is a technical process, and just worrying about hitting the target without considering the steps involved will lead to frustration and failure. Think about hitting a baseball. You step up to the plate focused on getting a hit, but without proper foot and body placement, your hit won’t have much power, assuming you get a hit at all. Focusing on the process of hitting the ball is more important than focusing on the result.

Some Habits Worth Breaking

Some of these bad habits are more common with new shooters than experienced ones, but they can happen to anyone. Even though the process is more important than the result when learning, the result is still your best indicator of success. A good way to identify the presence of a bad habit is by looking for patterns. For example, if your groups are always low or to the left, no matter what gun you shoot, it is a pattern. A consistent pattern often indicates a bad habit.

Poor Stance

One of the most common bad habits is a poor stance. The most obvious of these is leaning too far back, especially among female shooters, but it can affect men too, particularly if the person does not have good arm and upper body strength. Standing with your arms extended forward can be tiring and make you feel off balance. Leaning back helps to compensate for that sensation and makes holding your arms out in front of you feel easier, but it throws your balance off and increases the effects of recoil. Another bad habit is poor foot placement. Poor foot placement affects balance, making it more difficult to keep a steady sight picture and deal with recoil. Correct this problem by first understanding and being familiar with common stances like the Weaver, Isosceles, and the various forms of the fighting stance, then practice them with an unloaded gun at home or on the range before you actually start shooting. Focus on your foot placement, and always lean forward, then have someone watch you at the range to let you know how well you are doing.

Poor Trigger Manipulation

Many problems, like jerking the trigger instead of using a smooth pull, are the result of improper trigger finger placement. Pay attention to where your finger contacts the trigger. The trigger should be centered on the pad of your finger, halfway between the tip and the first knuckle. This allows you to pull the trigger straight back with no side flex. If you only use the tip of your finger, you will miss to the left. If the trigger rests too close to the first knuckle, you will miss to the right. Laser trainers are an excellent way to practice breaking this bad habit at home.

Not Focusing on the Front Sight

With the exception of very close quarters, focusing on the front sight is the Gold Standard for virtually all forms of shooting. The human eye can only focus on a single plane at a time, so since the front sight is critical for proper sight alignment, it is best to focus on it and let the target appear a little blurry. Again, dry fire and laser training can help build the proper skills for good sight alignment and accuracy.

Not Following Through

As with a golf swing or pitching a baseball, good follow-through is critical to proper technique. Lifting your head too quickly after the shot to see if you hit the target and taking your finger off the trigger immediately are bad habits that can impact accurate follow-up shots. After shooting, keep your head in the same position and the gun still, and do not let up on the trigger for a heartbeat after it breaks. Then let up on the trigger so it can reset and get your sights back on target. By the time you do this, you will know if you need to fire a second shot and will be ready to do so. You can get the motions down with dry fire or laser training, but getting back on target quickly after recoil will require some live fire time.

Rushing

There’s a phrase that everyone who has gone through any type of advanced tactical training knows: “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” The concept emphasizes mindfulness and precision, which in turn results in smoother execution, leading to faster and better results overall. Another saying you hear in competition shooting is: “You can’t miss fast enough to win.” When you’re at a range and everyone around you is dumping magazines left and right, it is easy to feel like you are shooting too slowly, but resist the temptation to dump the magazine because it could lead to continuing bad habits. Jerry Miculek did not become the fastest shooter in the world overnight. He did it by focusing on the process, not the result. Take your time and get the fundamentals down first, and you will find you get faster as time goes by.

Anticipating the Shot

Anticipating the shot leads to problems like pushing your handgun away from you just before pulling the trigger, lifting your head off the stock of a rifle, and even flinching or closing your eyes and jerking the trigger. Avoiding these things is especially difficult for new shooters or people who are recoil-averse. A highly accomplished Gold Cup-style competition shooter (think Bianchi Cup) once told me that if you are doing it right, you should almost be surprised when the gun goes off. What he meant was that you should keep your form and focus on the process of taking a good shot, and the gun will go off when everything is in the right spot. Anticipating the shot and reacting to it before it has been fired means your sights will not be on the target when the bullet leaves the muzzle. The best way to overcome this is to relax and do all the other things I talked about earlier in this article. If, after you have worked on the problem and still grimace before the gun goes off, you may need to consider a heavier gun with better ergonomics that produces less perceived recoil. For example, dump that Ruger LCP and switch to something with a little more heft.

Summary

Breaking any bad habit, whether it is overeating or a poor shooting stance, requires a mindful and deliberate focus on the process. Just as you cannot lose 20 pounds by wishing for success and weighing yourself, you can’t correct a bad shooting habit by hoping you hit the target. They both require attention to the process of achieving success.