Aiming Off: Could Shifting Your Target Improve Accuracy?

Source: Hasan Albari / Pexels

In archery, as in life, the straightest path to success may require a deliberate detour.

Earlier this year, I spent some time embedded at the World Archery Excellence Center in Lausanne, Switzerland, working as the performance specialist on the Taking Aim podcast. Amid the disciplined quiet of athletes drawing bows and the sharp hum of released arrows, I was reminded again and again of a paradox: some of the world’s best archers intentionally aim away from the centre of the target.

It’s called “Aiming Off,” a counterintuitive practice that lies at the heart of adaptability, precision, and ultimately, performance consistency under pressure. It challenges the instinctive fixation on the center of the target. And it might just be a masterclass for how we think about success in business, sport, and any domain where conditions shift but the goal remains the same.

The Paradox of Fixation

Target fixation is one of the most seductive traps in performance psychology. Whether you’re chasing a promotion or a perfect shot, the more you stare at the centre, the more elusive it can become. In performance psychology, we refer to this as a narrowing of attentional focus, where fixation on outcome crowds out the nuanced feedback required for high-level adaptation.

In archery, fixation is measurable. We can track it through grouping (the spread of arrows relative to each other) and through eye-tracking technology that reveals what’s known as the “quiet eye,” a still, focused gaze that precedes performance and remains fixated after execution. Research by Professor Joan Vickers, who coined the term, shows that athletes with a longer quiet eye duration tend to outperform those with scattered visual attention. However, even the most serene gaze must adjust to changing environments.

That’s where Aiming Off comes in. Using eye-trackers, we can detect how athletes Aim Off, with the best not being distracted by the golden center circle, but remaining true to their thinking process.

Aiming Off—On Purpose

To understand the value of aiming off, consider the process of learning to shoot. Archers first develop consistency in controlled, often indoor, environments. The goal in early training isn’t necessarily to hit the gold center scoring a 10, but to develop tight groupings; repeatedly hitting the same area of the target regardless of how it scores. Grouping shows the archer’s shot process is repeatable, and there’s usually a biomechanical adaptation (e.g., elbow position, hip rotation) which would need to occur next to shift the grouping towards the center.

Only once this is achieved does adaptation begin. Coaches alter the shooting distance, then introduce wind, shifting light, elevation changes, and variable footing. Suddenly, aiming directly at the centre no longer works. Athletes must assess external conditions, calculate compensations, and - yes - aim deliberately away from the target’s centre to account for environmental distortion.

I spoke with Sébastien Flute, the 1992 Olympic Champion and new head of operations at the Excellence Center, about this process. “At first, it feels wrong to aim anywhere but the middle,” he told me. “At the elite level, you have to learn to let go of perfection and learn precision. That means knowing when to aim off, and trusting that it’s not a mistake, but a learned skill.”

From Archery to Adaptability

What’s powerful about Aiming Off is that it cultivates a deep sense of situational awareness. It’s not blind compensation. It’s informed adaptation. Athletes trial different approaches, test arrow flight patterns, and read the conditions like meteorologists of microclimates. It’s science, art, and experience fused into action.

In my discussions with two of the world’s best coaches; France’s Marc Dellenbach and Turkiye’s Göktug Ergin, they both teach Aiming Off gradually. They don’t throw archers into chaos. They build a foundation of trust - between athlete and equipment, between process and performance. Then, they systematically stretch comfort zones.

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As I watched a Spanish recurve archer step to the line on a windy afternoon. Standing at 70 meters from the target, she shifted her aim high right. As she released, the arrow moved left and dropped into the golden center. She didn’t fixate on the middle of the target; she Aimed Off, and hit dead on. Her eye fixated, but her mind was agile.

This is precisely the mindset high-performing teams seek. In business, leaders are often told to keep their eye on the prize, but what if the prize is obscured? What if the market shifts, the algorithm changes, or the supply chain falters? Target fixation, in those moments, becomes a liability. Adaptability, by contrast, becomes the competitive edge.

The Psychology of Aiming Off

Aiming Off requires psychological flexibility, a trait increasingly linked to resilience and wellbeing. According to research in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, performers who can shift perspectives, embrace uncertainty, and act in alignment with values and processes rather than outcomes tend to perform better under pressure.

Coaches Dellenbach and Ergin of course work on technique so athletes can execute shots, and they train them to accept so that no shot is ever exactly the same. Importantly, they train their athletes for the reality of complex performance.

To aim off is to trust your method under uncertainty. It’s to focus on what you control: your process, rather than chase what you don’t. And ironically, it’s that detour from the gold that brings the archer closest to it.

What’s more, we now know that physical regulation techniques enhance this trust. Research shows that slowing the breath, using methods like box breathing or diaphragmatic breathing, activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn lowers heart rate and increases heart rate variability. This state of calm readiness allows for improved decision-making and motor control specifically when at full draw, just before an arrow is released.

When these physiological techniques are combined with psychological tools like quiet eye training, which prolongs focus on the target just before and after release, they create an ideal mental environment for peak performance. In other words, slowing down the breath helps speed up the brain's ability to adapt and commit to action.

Applying the Principle Beyond Archery

After the podcast series, I often found myself returning to this thought: what does Aiming Off look like in daily life?

For a student facing an exam under stress, it might mean revising in a new way, maybe teaching rather than re-reading. For a CEO, it might mean pulling back from short-term metrics to realign with long-term purpose. For a performer, it’s trusting in rehearsal and muscle memory instead of obsessing over the score.

These are all forms of Aiming Off: adjusting to the wind of circumstance, the terrain of challenge, and the variability of the human condition.

The Target Isn’t Everything

What archery teaches us, especially through practices like Aiming Off, is that consistency isn’t about robotic perfection. It’s about calibrated improvisation. The more we can embed adaptability into our skillset, the more resilient and successful we become. The next time you feel like you’re missing the mark, consider whether you’re actually learning to hit it from a different angle. The lesson of elite archers is not to aim harder, but to aim smarter. Because in archery, as in life, sometimes the best way to hit the centre…is not to aim at it at all.