I’m curious to know how other archers cope with this. We all have bad days and poor shots, but how do you cope or overcome this so it doesn’t affect your next shot or even your entire day?
I suffer from this really badly.
If I blank a target, i.e. don’t get a scoring arrow out of the 3 arrows attempts allowed I get really down. This affects my shooting. I become less fluid in my movements, more tense in my draw; start second guessing distances and angles. I start fiddling with my coat or arm brace etc. I get frustrated with myself as I keep saying to myself it over, move on but this doesn’t always work.

I don’t think it helps that I tend to have a memory that remembers things like shots that I’ve taken.  I tend to approach targets and think “I shot something like this distance before and aimed here, but missed so need to be a little higher or to the left” etc.  Since I don’t gap shoot or use sights, my image maps and target distances are all based on previous shooting experience.

I’m talking from a keen archer who, in the past has won a couple of local shoots, but  is never going to be world class like those in the Olympics, but there must be techniques for overcoming such mind sets. Olympic archers or bow hunters must have methods of putting the shot behind them and moving on.

So how do other archers cope?
How do you overcome self induced stress and frustration?

I would be really interested in hearing from others on this.
Thanks for reading.