"Perfection is the enemy of progress." - Winston Churchill

Not everyone’s training goal for shooting or combatives should be set at the limit of their potential skill. Armed professionals have other skill sets to develop and maintain, private citizens who train for self-defense have limited time and resources due to other obligations, even competitors who compete as a hobby have other interests and demands on their time. To progress to the limits of your talent takes a huge investment of time and energy. 

Realistically, for the overwhelming majority of armed encounters, you don’t need to be a master or grandmaster class shooter in USPSA or IDPA to win. Likewise, you don’t need to be a Brazilian Jiujitsu or Kyukoshinkai black belt to prevail in a street fight. You don’t have to be a Kali grandmaster to defend yourself with a knife.

Taking your training to that point is largely a matter of desire and self satisfaction. There are outliers to be sure, but a solid level of unconscious competence at manipulating your weapon and delivering accurate shots at speed is more than sufficient for most real world situations involving firearms. And MMA has proven that a deep dive into any one skill set is not absolutely necessary to be a good hand to hand fighter. So how good is good enough?

There’s no one size fits all answer to this. The best answer for you depends on a host of variables. Are you a CCW holder looking to defend himself and his family? A law enforcement officer who’s duties don’t typically involve high risk operations? A SWAT team member in a busy metropolitan jurisdiction? A member of a military special operations unit? There are other things to consider as well. What level of threat are you most likely to face? How much time can you devote to your training? And perhaps the most important question of all, how good is good enough for you? There’s a realistic appraisal of the minimum standard, but that doesn’t mean you can’t want more.

For the armed professional, an honest needs analysis should give you a realistic standard to hold yourself to. And it’s probably not your agency’s qualification standard. With rare exceptions those exist solely to indemnify the agency, not set an appropriate level of skill. Take a good hard look at your duties, and set your training goals to match.

If your professional duties include hostage rescue, my opinion is pretty unforgiving. There really isn’t a good enough. That responsibility means that good enough is the limit of your skill, or at least as close as you can get with the training time you have available to you. If you do this at that level for a living you should continue improving throughout the course of your career.

For the defensive minded civilian, that level of dedication isn’t strictly necessary. Nothing wrong with wanting to pursue skill for its own sake, but not everyone is able to devote the time and ammunition that requires. So how does someone with conflicting demands on their time and budget decide how to prioritize their firearms and combatives training? The simple answer is pick a set of standards, there are many good ones out there, figure out how much time and ammo and physical effort you can devote to training and get to work. Short answer is, when you feel you’re good enough, get a little better still.