Drive to Clays Success: Pre-Event Pep Talk

Drive to Clays Success

The Champion’s Mindset: Preparing for a Sporting Clays Event

As you drive to the sporting clays event, the road unwinding before you like the lanes of a carefully set course, the preparation for what lies ahead is more than a matter of packing your gear, loading your shotgun, or reviewing the layout of the stations. The mental preparation—how you ready yourself psychologically—is the true foundation of success. Your mindset in the hours leading up to an event will determine not only how you perform but also how much you enjoy the experience, how much you learn from it, and how you grow as a competitor.

The Calm Before the Storm: A Grounded Start

As you begin your journey to the event, the first step is to cultivate mental calm and clarity. This moment is about focusing not on the targets, the scores, or your competition, but on your state of being. Let yourself take a few deep breaths, slowly and deliberately, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Breathing is your anchor—it reminds you that control begins within. With every exhale, you release tension and clear your mind of distractions. This is where the performance truly begins, long before the first shot is fired.

Let your thoughts settle on your purpose: Why do I shoot? For many, it’s more than just winning—it’s about the pursuit of mastery, the challenge, the joy of hitting a tough target. Keep that purpose close. Intrinsic motivation—the love of the sport, the thrill of competing against yourself—will fuel you far better than focusing on external outcomes like scores or placings.

Visualizing Success: Seeing the Path Ahead

Once you have grounded yourself in calm, visualization becomes your most powerful tool. Elite athletes across every sport use visualization to prepare their minds and bodies for what’s to come, and in Sporting Clays, this technique is especially powerful. Begin by picturing the course—whether it’s one you’ve shot before or one you haven’t yet seen, imagine the types of targets, the flight paths, and the settings. Picture the trees, the wind, and how you will move with the gun.

More importantly, visualize the perfect shot. See yourself mounting the gun with precision, your eyes locking onto the target, following its flight smoothly, and executing the shot with confidence. Visualize the feel of the trigger as you make the perfect connection, the satisfaction as the clay shatters in mid-air. Feel the rhythm of success before it happens. When you arrive at the course, your body will already have a blueprint for that feeling, and you’ll be more likely to replicate it under pressure.

But don’t just visualize the hit—see yourself staying calm and collected after every shot, hit or non-hit. Picture yourself resetting after each station, focusing again, approaching the next shot with fresh determination. This reinforces the resilience needed to keep your focus shot after shot, even when you make mistakes.

Positive Self-Talk: Fueling Confidence and Focus

In the quiet moments of your drive, the dialogue you have with yourself will shape your performance. Positive self-talk is the secret weapon of champions. But it’s not just empty encouragement—it’s a deliberate technique to align your thoughts with your best self.

Tell yourself things that are specific, actionable, and rooted in what you’ve done before:

• I’ve trained for this moment. I know what to do.

• My fundamentals are strong, and I trust them.

• I see the target clearly, and my body knows how to respond.

By reinforcing these beliefs, you are priming your mind to trust in your abilities. This is crucial because Sporting Clays is a sport of rhythm, reaction, and fluidity. Hesitation and doubt are the enemies of fluid shooting, so any uncertainty must be overridden with deliberate, focused confidence.

But positive self-talk isn’t just about hyping yourself up—it’s also about staying grounded. If you feel anxiety creeping in, acknowledge it calmly:

• This nervous energy is a sign that I care about my performance.

• I can control what I focus on—one shot at a time.

This neutral, controlled self-talk takes the edge off anxiety and brings you back to the present, where performance happens.

Process Over Outcome: The Champion’s Focus

One of the most important psychological approaches to bring with you is a process-oriented mindset. In Sporting Clays, it’s easy to get lost in thinking about your score, whether you’ll punch up in your class, or how you’ll place among your peers. But focusing on the outcome before the event even begins can undermine your performance. The best shooters don’t think about the end—they focus entirely on the process.

What does this look like? It means breaking down the day into manageable, controllable pieces:

1. Pre-shot routine: Every time you step into the station, focus only on your pre-shot

routine. Where is your visual hold point? Where is your muzzle hold point? How will you smoothly mount the gun? These are all things you can control—and if you execute them well, the outcome will take care of itself.

2. Trusting the fundamentals: If you’ve put in the practice, now is the time to trust it.

Don’t overanalyze or second-guess yourself. Trust that your body knows what to do, and let it

flow naturally. Stay in the present moment, focusing only on the task at hand, not the shot you just took or the one that’s coming next.

3. Letting go of perfection: Understand that even the best shooters don’t hit every

target. Non-hits are part of the game, and what separates great shooters from the rest is their ability to recover mentally. If you miss, don’t dwell on it. Instead, think: What can I learn from this? Focus on the adjustment, not the failure. This keeps your mind sharp and ready for the next target.

Quiet Eye and Visual Control: Tuning In

One critical aspect of the psychological approach to Sporting Clays is the concept of visual control, particularly through techniques like the Quiet Eye. As you prepare mentally, remind yourself of where your overt focus should be: the target.

The Quiet Eye is the moment when your eyes lock in on the target just before you shoot, reducing distractions and improving precision. Mentally rehearse this process on your drive—how your eyes will smoothly transition from soft focus to locking in on the clay. Your visual control is the key to staying grounded and in the moment during each shot.

Prepping for Emotional Resilience

Lastly, as you near the event, take a few moments to mentally prepare for the emotional rollercoaster that every competition brings. There will be highs and lows, and your ability to stay emotionally resilient will define your success. Focus on equanimity—staying even-keeled regardless of whether you’re hitting or missing. Tell yourself that the only thing you need to worry about is the next shot. Everything else, the scores, the rankings, and even the missed targets, are background noise. You have the power to tune them out and stay present.

Remember, in Sporting Clays, the best shooters aren’t just skilled—they’re mentally tough. They are able to perform under pressure because they trust themselves, focus on the process, and remain resilient in the face of setbacks.

The Arrival: Grounded and Ready

When you arrive at the course, take a moment to center yourself before stepping out of the car. Feel the calmness you’ve cultivated. Breathe deeply. Visualize the course again. Tell yourself that you’re ready, not because you’re perfect, but because you’re prepared. You’ve done the work, and now is the time to enjoy the fruits of your training.

As you prepare to take on the course, remember that the true victory is not in the final score—it’s in how you approach every shot, every challenge, and every moment of the day. By maintaining a focused, process-oriented mindset, grounded in calm and clarity, you will not only shoot your best but also enjoy the journey.

This is your moment. Embrace it fully.