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Thread: I think I'm burned out

  1. #11
    It is not at all uncommon to get burnt out or whatever from anything. Skiing, shooting, photography, mountain climbing, whatever. It usually happens when people either overload themselves and/or they forget what drew them to their discipline from the start.

    This is a whole topic in sports psychology.

    In short do not be afraid to take a break. Find something else to go do. Take up gardening. Learn how to whittle. I don't know. But just learn something new and different. What most people that get good at something have in common is that they know how to learn. The path of getting from point A to B of a skill set is not mysterious to them.

    You would be surprised at how many couch potatoes do not get it at all about how to genuinely get good at something. The people that have gotten good at something though know that process fairly well. In other words apply it to something else other than guns for a while. Don't be one dimensional. It's ok to like more than one thing and to get good at more than one thing.

    You will find that over time (if you take a break) that if you keep that fire of learning stoked up even if it's not in your specific area of expertise right now that it will ultimately help you progress later on when you pick up the pistols again.

  2. #12
    Member SecondsCount's Avatar
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    Shooting is a hobby for me. I compete once in a while to see where I am but I don't stress about it. Stress comes in buckets 5-6 days a week so on the weekend I like to enjoy my time away from the office.

    I tend to move my shooting time around between different disciplines. One day I shoot my pistol, another day I will get out the 22LR bolt action or the AR and shoot small things at longer distances, as well as my precision rifle at 1000+ yards. I find it is way more fun when shooting with friends or family.
    -Seconds Count. Misses Don't-

  3. #13
    Another idea to consider if you don't want to go off into another area of interest is to become a mentor to someone else. Yes. You heard me right. Find a junior shooter or a newer shooter and take them under your wing. Show them how to reload on up to sharing your tips and tricks. Sometimes looking outside of yourself for satisfaction is the right solution for a multitude of things.

  4. #14
    I have not had a virtual shooting buddy but when I had a physical one I shot more and attended many more matches.

    I am not and have never been a serious competitor (IPSC C class), and in Canada that is about it for handguns for most of us, there is a bit of IDPA but no defensive pistol training, carrying, etc. But we had a timer, real IPSC targets, and set up various drills including scoring and patching, so we knew who was "winning". At that time we were using an outdoor range that allowed "action pistol" so we could draw from holsters (I know, but not that easy to find around here). The shooting area was concrete so we also retrieved all of our practice brass. Every once in a while there would be somebody we recognized from matches and we would invite them to shoot whatever we had set up. It was great, and we got out every week or two in the nice weather, finished up with brunch on the way home.

    We would also travel to matches, including USPSA in Michigan, Indiana, Florida and Arizona, it was great to share some of the costs and have at least one familiar face on the squad. Most of the USPSA was with buddy #2, and we were both shooting 2011s in 40S&W and thereby were able to provide each other with backup pistols, this was needed twice and much handier than carrying a second one "just in case" especially crossing the border & flying. The hardest part was that we were both in the same small section at work, so we had to conduct black operations to get time off together. Fortunately he had high seniority, and we both intimidated management, so were able to get what we needed.

    Unfortunately shooting buddy #1 had to retire from shooting because of a medical condition, and #2 moved, and later died, so no more shooting buddy at least so far. And a lot less shooting, even pre-pandemic. I am hoping to re-engage later this season (just got Pfizer #2 yesterday) but there are still a lot of restrictions here so we will see.

    So for me the shooting buddy made a big difference in how much I trained and how many matches I shot.

  5. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by MGW View Post
    I don't want to sound like a whiner but I'm not really sure how to snap out of this training funk that I'm in.
    You might be too focused on competition. I drifted away from IDPA when I shot a stage clean in 2.6 seconds and realized that I'd been waiting 45 minutes to get to the line. Repeat that eight times in a day and that's six plus hours waiting to shoot for a total of about 30 seconds. Not a good use of training time.

    I drift in and out of different aspects of it. I was heavy into IDPA for a while, then shotguns, then getting a bolt gun ready for a deer hunt in extremely brushy country, then an elk hunt. I'm coming off of a major scoped-rifle phase right now, ideally that will end with a bearskin rug in my living room. Revolvers are up next.


    Okie John
    “The reliability of the 30-06 on most of the world’s non-dangerous game is so well established as to be beyond intelligent dispute.” Finn Aagaard
    "Don't fuck with it" seems to prevent the vast majority of reported issues." BehindBlueI's

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by okie john View Post
    You might be too focused on competition. I drifted away from IDPA when I shot a stage clean in 2.6 seconds and realized that I'd been waiting 45 minutes to get to the line. Repeat that eight times in a day and that's six plus hours waiting to shoot for a total of about 30 seconds. Not a good use of training time.

    I drift in and out of different aspects of it. I was heavy into IDPA for a while, then shotguns, then getting a bolt gun ready for a deer hunt in extremely brushy country, then an elk hunt. I'm coming off of a major scoped-rifle phase right now, ideally that will end with a bearskin rug in my living room. Revolvers are up next.


    Okie John
    I like shooting a match now and then, but I stopped devoting so much time to it when I had a similar epiphany. I have a timer, and can set up my own stages and run them without all the waiting around.

    I also spend a lot more time playing guitar and tennis than I do shooting.

  7. #17
    I burned out on the competition thing a few years back. I always thought I’d just take a break and the fire would come back. It never did. What was supposed to be a one week training break turned into a year and then basically indefinitely.

    My job has been batshit crazy this year. I haven’t been to the range in 2021 unless it was back in January. I want to shoot, but when it comes time to load up and go all I want to do is rest. I miss shooting and the fun that came with it. I’ve got plenty of ammo. I just wake up Saturday morning feeling like I’ve had my ass whipped and lose the desire to go. That and my wife had to have an orthopedic procedure in the spring and my two weeks off work was really just taking care of everybody.

    I do have a class booked (Bolke/Haggard/Burch) that I am genuinely looking forward to, and I know I gotta do some prep work for that or else I risk being the class fool. So I know I need to dump this funk I’m in. I’ll be watching this thread with interest.

  8. #18
    It may be semantics or my limited understanding of English but I thought that burn out was when somebody trained a ton and got exhausted. Two matches and two live sessions a year with rare dry fire to me is not a burn out but a loss of interest.

    When something stops being interesting, I quit it. Resources are limited and time is priceless, why try to resuscitate something that is neither viable at the moment nor critical to continue on with. As rule, if the activity was truly interesting and important at some time and I quit it, I end up coming back in some form sometime later.
    Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.

  9. #19
    Hillbilly Elitist Malamute's Avatar
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    This came up in 2014, there was a good discussion about it. The change may end up being something besides shooting, at least for a while, or it may be changing how and what you shoot, and why. When it starts to become a chore, or isnt fun any more, its hard to keep forging on.


    https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ion-of-the-Gun
    “Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
    ― Theodore Roosevelt

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by MGW View Post
    And I don't know how to get unburned out. I've shot exactly two matches this year. One was a steel challenge match and the other was the state peace officer association match (as a civilian). I placed better than I thought I would in both matches. I enjoyed being there and I enjoyed being around and talking to people I hadn't seen in a while. But I was pretty indifferent about the shooting. I haven't practiced at all this year. I've been to the range two or three times. I know my round count for the year is well below 1,000 including the matches. Dryfire happens rarely.

    This isn't new. It started last year. As ammo got tighter and more expensive I made more excuses to not train. At first, I thought I was burned out on single stack and started looking for alternatives for a new match pistol. But then the idea of dropping money on a new gun and the ammo to become proficient with it and I thought to myself "what's the point". I live 10 minutes from my indoor local range and I can't remember the last time I shot there.

    I don't want to sound like a whiner but I'm not really sure how to snap out of this training funk that I'm in.
    Quote Originally Posted by Clusterfrack View Post
    I think this is a great thread topic, and a tough question. Burnout is a common thing at all levels of competition and training. Some people get past it and continue to advance. Many people quit as a result of burnout or simply because of lack of interest.

    I'm looking forward to hearing more P-F wisdom about burnout. Here are some of my thoughts on the topic:

    1. Consider quitting. Seriously consider it, and see how that feels. If shooting has become burdensome, and doesn't make you happy, why continue? Would you sell your guns if you quit shooting? How would that make you feel?

    2. Why do you train and compete? What's your motivation, and why did it go away? Do you train for competition, self-defense, fun, ?

    3. Do you have a growth mindset? Are you inspired by the excellence of other competitors? Or do they make you feel bad about yourself?

    4. Maybe the type of shooting you've been doing is boring, and you need to try something else? Personally, I can't imagine training very hard if steel challenge was all I was training for.

    I really like the book Match Mentality by Ben Stoeger. Lanny Bassham's With Winning in Mind is a classic.
    This is a great thread topic. In fact the topic of one of the all time classic PF threads, The Passion of The Gun:

    https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ion-of-the-Gun

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