Bowling One Good Shot At A Time

Updated 6/30/2020

The trick to success on the lanes is bowling one good shot at a time. The best strategy is to not get ahead of yourself; keep it simple and focus on bowling one good shot at a time.

When you are bowling well, you are making one good delivery, then another, and so on. Your ability to make a series of good deliveries leads to good scores.

Avoid getting ahead of yourself by thinking about your scoring possibilities or about what your opponent might be doing. Instead think only about what you have to do to make a good shot.


Being able to focus on what you need to do to make a good delivery is the key to bowling well. Focus your thoughts on only those needed to make a good approach and delivery of your bowling ball to your sighting target.

This strategy has underlying benefits. Since it is impossible to concentrate on your physical game at a high level for hours on end during each competitive session, it makes sense to then focus only on the few seconds of time you need to step onto the approach and walk to the foul line delivering a good shot toward your target.

Save your energy for when you need to focus on making a good shot and learn to not think too far ahead of yourself. To reduce pressure situations to manageable moments, just think about your next shot. After delivering the shot, update your thinking to your next shot.

Avoid dwelling on past results or on what the future holds. When you are stringing strikes, don't get ahead of where you are with respect to your maximum game score but rather think only about bowling one good shot at a time. Winning depends on a disciplined game strategy. The pro's do it, so why not you?