The Rock Warrior's Way: Mental Training For Climbers

expectation is not met. Frustration quickly saps your motivation, since you’re not getting what you want. When motivation drops so does commitment. Without commitment, you lose the ability to produce a maximum effort. You enter a downward performance spiral.

    Expect to be challenged, and to learn. Photo: Jim Thornburg
    Frustration is a sign that your attention has faltered. You sought out a challenging objective, but you’re forgetting why. Instead of diving into the rich learning process such a climb offers, you want the challenge to come down to your level. You’re disgusted, and you want it given to you. “I should be able to climb this route,” you say. That’s entitlement thinking. You’re not even thinking about how to sharpen your skills to the level the climb requires, which was the whole point in the first place. Your attention has drifted toward receiving and is further tied up in “poor me” behavior. You want something for nothing!
    If you find yourself becoming frustrated, take it as a symptom that you are out of alignment with your goals. If you really want an easy success, find an easier climb. If you want a real challenge, you’ve found it. If the Ego is asking for a trophy to use in its externally oriented game of self-worth, look the Ego dragon in the eye and draw your sword. Then pay attention, give your best, and enjoy the ride.
    Focus
    The action word for the Giving process is Focus . In Accepting Responsibility, you used your full attention to develop a clear, detailed, and objective idea of the situation. Now your goal is to focus attention onto engaging the situation, onto the challenging task at hand. Mentally, you will move toward the situation.
    In the Accepting Responsibility process we objectively assessed the three parts of the situation: the route, the fall consequence, and the climber. Doing this gave us tangible and accurate information. When we assessed the climber we identified certain skills and abilities that would impact the performance. Our previous level of mastery in those skills is an objective quality, not so different from hold size or rock angle. Our application of those skills in a new situation, however, is purely subjective, and that is our focus in Giving. In the Accepting Responsibility process we assessed our abilities so we could get an idea of the “toolbox” from which we could draw to engage the new challenge, and not let ourselves become overwhelmed by phantom fears about the apparent difficulties. Now, in the Giving process, we’ll focus on how to utilize those tools, our existing skills and abilities, to create the very best performance. If we focus our attention and give our all to the effort, even if we don’t make it up our route we’ll expand our comfort zone and increase our skills. That’s the goal. The Giving process, however, can be sabotaged if we fall into a receiving mindset.
    Receiving
    By saying, “I want to get this redpoint,” you aren’t focusing on the impending challenge. You’re adopting a receiving mindset that separates you from the task at hand and diverts attention from the quality of your effort. Put aside thoughts of the outcome and focus on the grand effort about to take place. Honor it. By asking, “What can I give to this effort?” you position yourself for engaging the challenge.
    Focusing well is an art. Many of us have a tendency to focus on what we don’t have—skills we don’t possess. Wayne Dyer, who has written many books on self-actualization, calls this tendency deficiency motivation . It’s the old water-glass concept. You think your glass is half empty, forgetting it’s also half full.
    With deficiency motivation, you create a mental image of repairing a “bad” situation. Think of a skill like thin-hands crack climbing. A deficiency-motivated person says, “I don’t know how to squeeze my hand to get it to hold in thin cracks.” Rather than falling into deficiency motivation, you can focus on actively improving the existing situation. Think of building upon skills you already have. For example, “I do know how to squeeze my hand to jam in hand-size cracks. Let me modify that process for thinner cracks.” You automatically start thinking how you use your thumb against your palm, press with your fingers, etc. You’ve framed the task in such a way that you have something tangible to work with and build upon.
    Other examples of deficiency thinking include focusing on the unknown (“I