Habits Have Contexts

Second of Coach Ruis' articles on Habits and Emotions ... as well as great American cuisine! ;o) 

My last post was about emotions and how they “fit” with habits. Habits also have contexts. An example may be the best way to explain this. Consider that all of a sudden you crave a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. If you had made quite a few of these over time, I am sure you could whip one up in a trice. You know where to find the bread, peanut butter, jelly, a plate, and knife to spread things about. I suspect you could probably do this in the middle of the night without turning on lights that might disturb others. But if you were to change apartments or move to a different house, nothing would be where you habitually found things. You would have to look for and find all of the ingredients, utensils etc. The whole process would take much more time than you were accustomed to spending on that task. Your PB&J habit/routine isn’t a fixed thing. It depends upon context.

50 people at your shoot, but mentally be here.

This shows up in archery a number of ways. For one we all tend to shoot higher scores on our home range than we do while traveling. This context phenomenon may be part of the reason why. For another, if you end up in a shoot-off and find yourself experiencing some competition pressure. Coaches like me suggest things like imagining yourself shooting at home or on your home range, basically shooting in contexts you have a great deal of experience shooting in and in which your habits seem “normal.”

So, what else, you ask? (You ask good questions, by the way.) If you are at a target shoot, I suggest you claim your position on the shooting line; claim that space as yours. Set up a spotting scope or whatnot. Do your best to create a bubble around your shooting position and … own it. Make it yours*. While you are shooting, nothing outside of your bubble is important or even worthy of note. Some adepts extend their bubbles to include their target butts.

I have seen competitors try to disrupt this process in their fellow competitors, even to the point of moving someone’s placed spotting scope and replacing it with their own. I consider that bad manners and poor sportsmanship, but be aware that there are some who will do that. If you get caught up in a dispute, you will be unsettled and not have a bubble of your own space, your own context, from which to shoot. Granted I don’t mind seeing some asshole get his lights punched out but I do not recommend it.

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* Our Editor's fav competition trick is to get banter and laughs going on his target early. Sets the target's atmosphere to one he's comfortable with and by mirroring the club's atmosphere, takes the pressure off.

Steve Ruis is the author of many books on coaching archery and maintains a blog for archery coaches at archerycoach.wordpress.com. (its free and well worth a visit) He is the former editor of Archery Focus magazine.