“Hell, I missed him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I saw the dirt fly where the bullet hit the ground.”

“It might have been a pass through.”

“I don’t think so, man. I’m pretty sure I whiffed.”

“Well, let’s walk down there and check.”

I carried Ruth, my dog down the stairs that led up to the box blind while JM carried our rifles. Then I loaded her up in the truck before we walked the 230 or so yards to where the hog was standing when I shot at him. It could turn into a real rodeo with a wounded hog lying in the mesquite. Managing Ruth, who’s a pet and not trained to hunt, while shooting at a charging boar seemed like a terrible idea.

JM and I walked circles around where the hog had been feeding. We found the tracks where he launched himself back into the mesquite at the crack of the rifle. What we didn’t find was any sign that I’d hit him — not a drop of blood, nothing to indicate that he was hit and struggling. Partly, it was a relief. Wounding critters hollows out my guts and leaves a pit. A clean miss is a good thing. Partly, it was disappointing. Finishing a charging boar at close range sounded like my kind of a spicy good time. There was also the disappointment of knowing I missed a shot that was well within my capabilities to make. After a good walk around, and a probe into the mesquite with my scope dialed out, JM and I gave up the search and headed back to the truck.

“There’s no way I should have missed. I rushed my shot.”

“Well, man, think about everything that was going on. It was your first time shooting like that with Ruth. I was trying to cover her ears and she was fighting me. I’m sure the stand was shaking. You felt pressure to get the shot off.”

“Yeah, but I knew I needed one more breath and I didn’t take it. I had more time.”

“Think of it this way, it was a good practice run with Ruth. Better that happen with a hog than the buck we’re hunting.” JM was right.

We double-checked to make sure our magazines were clear, put away our rifles, and climbed in the truck. We drove off to another part of the ranch to pick up our buddy Matt, who’d killed a doe.

And that was that.

There was no more need to discuss it. We knew what happened and why. We found the value and the understanding in the mistake. The miss was clean. 

Not only was the topic dropped from discussion, it was dropped from my mind. I felt no need to dwell on it. But that hasn’t always been the case. 

I remember jogging back to the sideline after throwing an interception during my senior year of high school. I had time for a quick sip of water, then I had to hustle back out to play defense. My coach handed me a water bottle and said, “Short memory, Mr. Bumgardner.” He knew I beat the piss out of myself over my mistakes. He knew that I was one of our best defensive players, and that the team needed me to play well during the next series so we could get the ball back. 

You have to have a short memory as a quarterback. You hear TV commentators say it all the time after an interception or an equally bad play. If you’ve played football, you’ve likely heard a coach say it, if not to you to one of your teammates. It’s one of those statements we know is true but is easier said than done. It always took me a few snaps to put my mistakes in the past. On particularly bad nights, I’d carry them with me throughout the game, to the detriment of myself and my team  — a problem I carried into my adult life.

I’d hound myself over my missteps. A lack of short memory turned into a near perpetual self-flaggelation. If you’ve ever wanted to be great at something, or at everything, you’ve likely done and felt the same. It’s normal if you give a shit. It’s also not helpful. You do need to have a short memory, however it’s not something you just do. It’s a skill you learn through attention and practice.

My undergraduate degree is in Psychology. It’s been a huge asset during my career as a coach. I spent four years learning the foundational ins and outs of the human mind, and the basic techniques for managing it. That foundation has led to a lifelong interest in personal development and self-improvement. It’s given me the tools and skills to better manage my own mind while helping my clients to develop the tools and skills to manage theirs. I’ve built a coaching model based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT). I’ve built a short memory management model based on Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT). The combination, when consistently practiced, develops the skills to move on from mistakes while continually growing and improving. ACT arms you so you can do what’s necessary to let go of your missed shots while also gaining the skill and confidence to miss less often.

ACT is based on the premise that while your thoughts can influence your actions, they don’t dictate your actions. The goal is to create psychological flexibility. That means you can stay present, create distance between yourself and your thoughts, and choose ways to behave that align with who you want to be.

You begin by noticing your thoughts. Let’s say you just missed a 230-yard shot on a South Texas hog that you absolutely should have hit. Maybe your mind says something to you like, “It’s absolutely ridiculous that you missed that shot.” 

You reply to your mind by noticing and naming. You say something to yourself like “I notice I’m having the thought that it’s absolutely ridiculous that I missed that shot.” Noticing and naming creates a degree of separation. You start to see your thought for what it is, just a thought — a series of words floating through your mind. It doesn’t have to dictate your emotions or what you do next. You are not your thoughts; you’re the one who notices your thoughts. This is called defusion.

And you accept the emotions that you do have. It’s normal to feel a little shitty after missing a shot you should have hit. Don’t force it out. It’s amazing how quickly negative thoughts disappear when you don’t try to crush them. It’s amazing how short your memory becomes with practice.

There’s much more to ACT than defusion and acceptance, and those are only two of many examples of how to approach them. However, you’ll make a lot of progress if you do nothing more than consistently practice them.

The day after I missed the pig, JM and I were in the truck on our way back to Dallas. We were chatting about the mental skills he’d work on during the next 90 days. I asked if he thought he’d improved with what we'd be working on, he said that he did. I agreed. Then I said that it wasn’t time for us to move on just yet. We still had more work to do on those particular skills, which I’ll keep between JM and I. But I’ll share that there’s a difference between trying to be perfect and striving for excellence. We see that difference in the space we create between ourselves and our negative thoughts.

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”

John Steinbeck’s character, Lee, says that in the novel East of Eden. He’s speaking with Abra, who is trying to be perfect — for her parents who are obviously imperfect, and for Aron, her self-righteous love interest who confuses his unearned moral superiority with true virtue. Lee says that to Abra because she’s accepted that she’s human, fallible, and it’s fine that she’s both. He says it to her because accepting imperfection is the only way to sustainably live out the good — to create enough space between your thoughts and your behavior to consistently improve yourself and the world around you.

The quote didn’t land with JM at first when I shared it with him.

“I don’t want to just be good. That’s not good enough. I want to be excellent.”

“I know you do. But that’s what the quote means. The only way to be excellent is to stop trying to be perfect.”

Perfectionism is a 17-year-old quarterback who can’t let go of the truth that he just threw an interception. It’s the adult whose internal dialogue is filled with self-directed insults they’d never dare say to someone they care about. It’s a recipe for letting your thoughts control you because you believe they’re true — that they are you.

I know this is true because perfectionism is something that I’ve overcome in sports, in business, in hunting, in all aspects of life. Letting go of perfect has allowed me to be good. It’s given me the ability as a coach to help others do the same. What a privilege.

Now, I can walk away from a shot I should have made and missed with the understanding of why it happened and what I need to do to nail the shot the next time I’m in that same situation.

It’s the space we gain from defusing our thoughts that gives us the necessary perspective to have a short memory, to choose the excellence of the good over the need to be perfect.