It's important to get into a routine when you're shooting Field Target. There's a lot going on and you've got to keep your focus for 4-6 minutes at a time when it's your turn to shoot.
A couple of times my focus waivered this weekend. The first was when I accidentally double-loaded my rifle and took a shot only to see two marks appear well below the target. And my "spidey sense" kicked in before I loaded thinking I should shoot one off just to be safe, but I didn't think I had loaded a pellet.
The second time was on pistol. I'm 2 down and on my last lane. Eric had missed 4, so I'm thinking I have this. I take my first shot at the 1st target and miss. Instead of going through and re-ranging I took a 2nd shot thinking I didn't hold for enough wind <splat>. I questioned my shooting partner afterwards and discovered I had mis-ranged by 5 yards.
The third time was during the pistol shoot-off. A simple 12 yard target, 1" killzone and I look up my hold-over...1 mil-dot below. When I take the shot I rush and aim the center of the scope at the center of the target <splat> I see a mark appear on the bottom edge of the reducer... And just my luck, Eric didn't make the same mistake and ended up getting 1st in pistol.
The mistakes were all mine. I had a great time, though. Shot my best pistol match to date and had a great time with the field target gang. All I can do is remember the lessons learned and make sure to follow my routine.

Apparently the Field Target community can read and are all too happy to throw that back at you any time they see fit.
Case in point... This past weekend we traveled down to Binghamton bright and early Saturday morning for a match at Greg's (Broom County Sportsmen Assoc), which is always great. Greg puts together a great rifle and pistol course. After we had shot the rifle course we're standing around talking, goofing around, and such and Mike Norris chimes in with some comment about field target being a "social" thing. Yes, imagine the fingers of each hand coming up....
Of course I whip my head around hearing this and, being oblivious, I start talking about how I had just written about that after the last match. Mike's just nodding his head waiting for his chance to interject with "yeah, I read it..." To which several people chimed in with the same comment. And me doing a full belly laugh and telling them all they're not on the Christmas list any more.
But it continues, because Greg then goes on about how I don't do enough of these and he hates having to go to my site anticipating the next post and how he's constantly refreshing the page. Me, being a programmer, interject with how you can set up a news feed in Outlook and have it tell you when content has been added. Only to be questioned "Who the hell uses Outlook these days?"
I'd like to say I got quiet and learned my lesson, but that probably wasn't the case.
Sometimes you just can't win because with friends like these who needs enemies?