After teaching adult squad for near on 2 years, I have to admit that it still amazes me that many climbers don’t believe that psychology is playing an important role in their climbing. There are a number of really clear and obvious examples that suggest that that is not the case. For many who have climbed in at Urban, you will have no doubt noticed that many new climbers get to the hook on the wave-wall, unhook and then fall off. What if we moved that hook up another half metre? Does everyone just max out at that point by coincidence or are they setting the anchor for their performance at the hook? Or many of you will have had the experience of climbing until you feel like you can’t keep going and then having someone down the bottom yelling out “Come on! Keep going, only a few more steps” and you finish the climb. Did that person somehow endow you with new levels of energy independent to your thinking?
Mind-set and physical ability are inseparable when it comes to climbing – like a nice cold beer and nachos after a long day at work! For many climbers, the challenge is being able to shift that mind-set to something more constructive and conducive to your success. Enter, cognitive restructuring. The sexiest of all things psychology, the mistress of many disciplines of psychology and the all-round amazing tool that every handy-man or woman should have in their climbing arsenal!
The process of applying cognitive restructuring is two-fold. The first is to identify unhelpful or negative thoughts. While this seems intuitive, many people are not aware that they may have “triggers” to these thoughts. For example, overhangs, crimps, long climbs, people watching them etc. Many people are also not very aware of the ‘mind-chatter’ that goes on when they are climbing. Dr Phil is a bit of an idiot I have to admit but bless him because what he is done is reduced complicated ideas to Texan-style sayings. One that I particularly like is “You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge”. This is very applicable to being able to shift negative thinking – it takes being aware of it to be able to change.
The next stage is the restructuring which is admittedly, difficult and frustrating. What you are trying to do at this stage is shift a negative thought to being something more constructive. NOTE! This does not mean trying to fool yourself into blind optimism so taking the thought “This climb is too hard there is no way I could ever hope to do this” and shifting that to “Dang! This climb is easy I might do it blindfolded” is not going to make you feel very good. Instead what you are trying to do is structure the thought in a way that gives you the best opportunity to succeed. So you may reframe the previous thought to “This climb definitely looks hard but I can see some sections I definitely think I can manage”. It may seem like a subtle and meaningless change but you are opening up the potential to succeed rather than thinking in the polar-opposites of “this is impossible” and trying to shift that to “this is easy”. Don’t believe me? Google self-fulfilling prophecy and have a bit of a read!
So your challenge is to start tuning into that ‘mind-chatter’ that narrates around in the back of your head and see if there are thoughts that are hindering your performance. Start to shift these toward a more constructive framing. Obviously there is more to this skill then what I can cover in a short blog so if you are keen to find out more, get along to Adult Squad where I cover this in much more detail!
Happy climbing!
Matt