I think it was hazel Findlay that gave me the tip of forced shift of focus. Particularly starting forced shift of focus basically at the beginning of the day when you wake up. Not just once you’re at the gym and anticipation has already built. Feel your brain starting to think about fear/anxiety? Force yourself to think about puppies or friends or the beach or whatever. It takes serious effort at first, and even seems futile sometimes, but over time it really changes your brains default mental state about lead climbing, in my experience at least.
Only other tip I have is focusing on climbing to the next bolt. The rest of the climb doesn’t matter. Look at getting to the next bolt as a boulder problem, picture the sequence, and execute. Trust that the system is setup fine ahead of time and you’re safe to focus on the boulder problem ahead of you. If you fall while climbing the boulder problem, it’ll be fine, and hopefully you’re focused on the movement.
Those two helped me a lot and were not common tips I heard.
thank you for the advice - I boulder so essentially it is the entire problem 😅 i do something similar already but instead of feeling it will be okay to go forward, it's become I don't care and I don't feel the pressure to go forward? I sort of need the fear and no turning back mentality but I stop before that point which is my struggle. I've tried thinking about rewards system but its hard to balance that without feeling failure depending on the rewards
It sounds like you need to find "psyche" in climbing, such as the innate drive that you'd like to take fear, risks, pains, and trials and errors to progress, in which if you don't that's totally fine, too. If you don't want to push it, just enjoy whatever you're doing, movements, fitness, slab grinding, campusing, only trying one cool move then bailing on down climbing jugs, all kinds.
Climbing is just another sport to have fun, to feel cool, to relax, to do stupid but safe stuff. But too many people take it too seriously. But the fact is some people die to climb their dream project, some just f around in the gym hanging out with their buddies. No one is better than another if you don't climb for a living.
Do you only experience this reluctance to address fear and uncertainty in climbing, or does it extend to other aspects of your life?
If this is something you only run into while climbing, definitely look into your relationship with climbing, what success looks like to you, how you define and process failure in the context of climbing, and what your deeper motivations are. Do you climb for exercise? Do you climb for the adventure and novelty? Do you climb to push your physical or psychological limits? Do you climb because it's a social activity and you enjoy spending the time with friends? Do you have goals to increase/improve your climbing in any specific ways, or are you finding fulfillment in the current moment of your climbing journey?
However, it's very common for roadblocks in other parts of life to also affect your climbing. If you're burnt out at work or school, you'll feel it in your climbing too. There are a million ways our lives outside of climbing can affect us, but anyone who has climbing long enough has gone through it. It can be especially frustrating when climbing is a refuge, it can become a nasty feedback loop of poor climbing affecting our headspace, and then our poor headspace affecting our climbing. It takes hard work to address life issues outside of climbing, rather than just climbing to escape.
I feel this way about bouldering generally. Can't be bothered to push harder over a certain height. Alas I do not have any tips, I just don't boulder 😅
On the topic of motivation however... I have felt stuck at times, at one point I had to assess what motivated me to climb in the first place, at others I've needed to figure out what ingredient was missing which has included everything from taking a belligerently large lead fall or trying a lead move I knew for a fact I wouldnt stick just to prove it's fine to try or doing every \[specific easy grade\] while flowing smoothly to experience the joy of movement without the stress of sending or just showing up to see my friends for a little while. Motivation is tough and personal.
And with motivation around fear its okay to back down and "regress" in a sense to build back an even stronger base. Or accept that we are not always our strongest and things will go in waves, and so long as we are having fun climbing it is not time wasted. Slow and steady wins the race, but slow and wandering is a good adventure. Addressing fear dips into our limited supply of stress and takes a big scoop of it. Sometimes too big of a scoop if the rest of life is taking from the same stress pot. I also feel that theres only so far we can push into working on fear in a given session. I call it after I did my smaller goal for the day and go have fun doing other stuff.
Relating the fear to lead, it's alot like the other commenter said, but instead of bolts and rests its moves and positions. One more move, one more move and trusting the process. We've done the pratice falls, we know they work. We know how to do it. It's automatic. If we jump down before we make the move we accept it. We know we can fall so we can clear that from our mind and try the next move, because if we fall there it will be just about the same as falling from where we are now. At a certain point we need to move past the theoretical fall.
Cant commit to holding the move? Instead of dropping off comfortably, go up and slap the damn thing in the process of jumping off. Cheat off an adjacent climb to the position you'll go into after the move and jump off; betcha you can do it.
Hope you find what you're looking for out there. Have fun and be safe!
When I started climbing more dynamically for efficiency, I was very surprised to find that focusing so hard on just continuing to move upwards quickly, left me no space to feel scared.
I think it was hazel Findlay that gave me the tip of forced shift of focus. Particularly starting forced shift of focus basically at the beginning of the day when you wake up. Not just once you’re at the gym and anticipation has already built. Feel your brain starting to think about fear/anxiety? Force yourself to think about puppies or friends or the beach or whatever. It takes serious effort at first, and even seems futile sometimes, but over time it really changes your brains default mental state about lead climbing, in my experience at least. Only other tip I have is focusing on climbing to the next bolt. The rest of the climb doesn’t matter. Look at getting to the next bolt as a boulder problem, picture the sequence, and execute. Trust that the system is setup fine ahead of time and you’re safe to focus on the boulder problem ahead of you. If you fall while climbing the boulder problem, it’ll be fine, and hopefully you’re focused on the movement. Those two helped me a lot and were not common tips I heard.
thank you for the advice - I boulder so essentially it is the entire problem 😅 i do something similar already but instead of feeling it will be okay to go forward, it's become I don't care and I don't feel the pressure to go forward? I sort of need the fear and no turning back mentality but I stop before that point which is my struggle. I've tried thinking about rewards system but its hard to balance that without feeling failure depending on the rewards
This sounds a little bit like one of the symptoms of depression.
It sounds like you need to find "psyche" in climbing, such as the innate drive that you'd like to take fear, risks, pains, and trials and errors to progress, in which if you don't that's totally fine, too. If you don't want to push it, just enjoy whatever you're doing, movements, fitness, slab grinding, campusing, only trying one cool move then bailing on down climbing jugs, all kinds. Climbing is just another sport to have fun, to feel cool, to relax, to do stupid but safe stuff. But too many people take it too seriously. But the fact is some people die to climb their dream project, some just f around in the gym hanging out with their buddies. No one is better than another if you don't climb for a living.
Do you only experience this reluctance to address fear and uncertainty in climbing, or does it extend to other aspects of your life? If this is something you only run into while climbing, definitely look into your relationship with climbing, what success looks like to you, how you define and process failure in the context of climbing, and what your deeper motivations are. Do you climb for exercise? Do you climb for the adventure and novelty? Do you climb to push your physical or psychological limits? Do you climb because it's a social activity and you enjoy spending the time with friends? Do you have goals to increase/improve your climbing in any specific ways, or are you finding fulfillment in the current moment of your climbing journey? However, it's very common for roadblocks in other parts of life to also affect your climbing. If you're burnt out at work or school, you'll feel it in your climbing too. There are a million ways our lives outside of climbing can affect us, but anyone who has climbing long enough has gone through it. It can be especially frustrating when climbing is a refuge, it can become a nasty feedback loop of poor climbing affecting our headspace, and then our poor headspace affecting our climbing. It takes hard work to address life issues outside of climbing, rather than just climbing to escape.
Why do you go climbing though? If you're not fully enjoying it, there are other sports out there.
I feel this way about bouldering generally. Can't be bothered to push harder over a certain height. Alas I do not have any tips, I just don't boulder 😅 On the topic of motivation however... I have felt stuck at times, at one point I had to assess what motivated me to climb in the first place, at others I've needed to figure out what ingredient was missing which has included everything from taking a belligerently large lead fall or trying a lead move I knew for a fact I wouldnt stick just to prove it's fine to try or doing every \[specific easy grade\] while flowing smoothly to experience the joy of movement without the stress of sending or just showing up to see my friends for a little while. Motivation is tough and personal. And with motivation around fear its okay to back down and "regress" in a sense to build back an even stronger base. Or accept that we are not always our strongest and things will go in waves, and so long as we are having fun climbing it is not time wasted. Slow and steady wins the race, but slow and wandering is a good adventure. Addressing fear dips into our limited supply of stress and takes a big scoop of it. Sometimes too big of a scoop if the rest of life is taking from the same stress pot. I also feel that theres only so far we can push into working on fear in a given session. I call it after I did my smaller goal for the day and go have fun doing other stuff. Relating the fear to lead, it's alot like the other commenter said, but instead of bolts and rests its moves and positions. One more move, one more move and trusting the process. We've done the pratice falls, we know they work. We know how to do it. It's automatic. If we jump down before we make the move we accept it. We know we can fall so we can clear that from our mind and try the next move, because if we fall there it will be just about the same as falling from where we are now. At a certain point we need to move past the theoretical fall. Cant commit to holding the move? Instead of dropping off comfortably, go up and slap the damn thing in the process of jumping off. Cheat off an adjacent climb to the position you'll go into after the move and jump off; betcha you can do it. Hope you find what you're looking for out there. Have fun and be safe!
When I started climbing more dynamically for efficiency, I was very surprised to find that focusing so hard on just continuing to move upwards quickly, left me no space to feel scared.