The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers

however, would have been too frightening. He obscured the danger by pretending that he was going downstairs simply to verify safety.
    The man’s unconscious attempt to control his fear gave him an expectation that interfered with his ability to perceive the situation as it really was. Instead of conducting his search with the expectation of finding danger, the man searched with the expectation of finding nothing. This interfered with his ability to take proper precautions and deal wisely with what he discovered—an intruder!
    Fear is one cause of poor objectivity, but self-deception can derive from sources other than fear. Justification is another scheme for lying to yourself.
    An example might be a person pilfering postage stamps from his company. This is an apparently insignificant act, but it’s the structure of the justification, not the magnitude of the offense, that makes it interesting to analyze. The stamp-pilferer holds the view that stealing is wrong. Since he holds that view, he can’t admit to himself that he is actually stealing the stamps. He says to himself he is underpaid and the company owes him at least a few inexpensive stamps. Or, he says to himself that his personal correspondence in some way benefits the company.
    Most of us participate in some sort of justification scheme like this to excuse ourselves from the rigors of our supposed beliefs. The average person is quite creative with the little justifications he can think up to deceive himself that his actions are not out of line with his purported beliefs. If we confront ourselves point blank with our words and actions, however, we know that we are lying. Scrupulous honesty is required to realize this. Removing small lies from our day-to-day life cleanses the whole system. If you stop lying to yourself about postage stamps, you stop lying to yourself about climbing, why you aren’t stretching, or why you turned the lead over to your partner. You come to grips with reality, and reality is a more effective teacher than illusion.
    Tricking yourself is similar to lying, but you do it consciously. I’ve heard and read about climbers advocating that you trick yourself into believing you can do something. Even if this tactic achieves some short-term benefit, it’s a fool’s approach.
    If you are on a runout route, preparing to do the crux, and tell yourself, “There is a bolt right at my face,” your are intentionally creating a make-believe situation. You might manage to reduce your stress level, but tricking yourself is the surest way to get yourself into risks that aren’t appropriate, nor ultimately valuable. The Rock Warrior’s goal isn’t to get up a certain climb by hook or crook. It’s to gain personal power. He gains that power by taking forays into the unknown with the conscious intention of taking a risk—an appropriate risk that will allow him to learn but won’t hurt or kill him. Instead of tricking yourself by creating a false, non-threatening situation, you should be giving your full attention to the real situation. Where is the last pro? Where is the next pro? How far is the potential fall? How much power do I have left? Why am I feeling hesitant or fearful? These questions enable you to learn from the situation and lead to greater understanding, growth, and power. That’s the goal, not climbing the crux. You want to understand the risk—the reality of the situation—as clearly as possible. Tricking yourself works against that process.
    Past experience is another source of self-deception. People constantly cloud their perceptions by looking through associations, metaphors, and memories, rather than describing things in the moment. Climbers do this all the time. When you look at a crack climb, are you filtering your perception through past experiences, or are you simply observing objectively? Let’s examine the three forms of non-objectivity that can come from relying too much on past experience.
    Association is linking together things in your brain. If you think of one thing, you think of the other. For example, you may associate crack climbing with pain. Does a crack climb look painful? How can something look painful? If you see a crack climb as painful, you are associating. Other climbers could look at the crack without thinking of pain and ascend the crack without experiencing pain. You have apparently had painful crack-climbing experiences, and you now associate cracks with pain. Separate the two components of