This is a topic I am deeply passionate about, recently I was asked to write a blog on a couple of these topics, here’s a few of my thoughts, it was definitely a struggle to not just keep writing and make this blog an hour long read!
Nervousness or Excitement.
Happiness and Struggle.
Fear and Reality.
Frustration and Self Worth.
Competitions and Results.
These are some of the relationships of mind I am going to discus somewhere in this blog and while these are my point of view I hope they start or continue the journey of realisation for you.
What qualifies me to write this post? Nothing and Everything at the same time, I have no formal qualifications but I have done a lot of reading for myself personally to overcome the challenges faced within my mind and this has helped to form my current perspective on life and topics I mentioned above. This is at the end of the day my point of view and is not scientifically proven and may not be correct for everybody but it is what has worked for me.
Nervousness and Excitement, Competitions and Results, Fear and Reality.
Sometimes you look at a hold or a weight we have tried before and instantly a spike in nerves happens, some people called this anxiety, nervous or even fear but what is it at its core? Its excitement, well if that’s what you decide to classify it as that in your mind anyways. What do I mean?
A change in your mental state is caused by a chemical change in the brain, when it comes to Nervousness, Anxiousness or Excitement these are all very similar chemical responses, its just that our consciousness often perceives Anxiousness and Nervousness as a Negative response and Excitement as a Positive one.
The question then becomes “ if the chemical reaction is the same then how do we change our response to the reaction?” does it not?. Firstly we must understand that our current view of the world, our reality, is based on the stories we tell ourselves about the world, the conditioning of our past, often these stories are worded in definite terms like “this happened or happens because of X”, “If I do that then Y happens”. Keep an eye out when you are listening to your own narrative for “if’s” or “thens”, these are your justification statements.
How then do we change our story? We do that by changing “if” or “then” statements into questions. Let me give you and example or 2…
Statement 1
If I compete I get too nervous to perform.
2 things are happening here, 1 - its a definite statement, 2 - its a blanket statement.
Change the narrative.
I got really nervous in the last competition I was in. - Now this isn’t a blanket statement.
Did I get nervous in the last comp or was I excited? - Changed from statement to question, same chemical response, different mental perspective. This opens the door to learning and change.
Somethings to realise about competitions:
In climbing you are not competing against anyone except the route setter and the emotional responses they are trying to make you feel.
You can use your emotions, need to try hard? use your excitement or former nervousness to drive your try hard.
People want you to succeed! The energy in the room from a cheer is electric! What you think of as them putting you down is actually just the absence of this energy in the room, it is not truly a negative.
As always, assess the risk, if you are happy with the level of risk then the only things left are am I in a physical state to perform or is my mindset in the right place. if you are not happy with the level of risk then choose not to perform and be ok with that.
Happiness and Struggle, Frustration and Self Worth.
Happiness or joy isn’t the absence of pain, it is found through pain. Each of us finds our battles in our own way and each of us chooses every battle we face.
There’s a term called Extreme Ownership, it’s even a book by Jocko Willink, everything that you are facing right now is a result of who you are right now. We must accept ownership of everything that happens in our life to be able to change said thing.
“The weights to heavy for me to pick up” or “Im not strong enough to pick that weight up”.
“slab climbing isn’t for me” or “I don’t understand slab climbing”
2 very different meanings to the same statement, 1 that sounds like its out of your control and the other sounds like there’s something you can do about it.
If you are constantly giving away you control over any given situation you are lowering your ability to control your self worth, give away your car you can no longer call it yours. I have seen many many people stuck in a place of frustration in a world where they are not willing to accept or take back that ownership.
The bigger the struggle we choose to overcome the greater the joy as we learn what we needed too.
I think ultimately with sports we fail for only 2 reasons, mental or physical.
You are either in the right headspace to perform or you are not, either in the right physical condition or not.
A trick of the mind is that we think we need to feel progress as it happens in order to be obtaining “happiness” but this just isn’t true, if it was there wouldn’t be such a thing as a break through. Sometimes you must choose to follow the path you cannot see progress or feel a sense of moving forward to be ok with not knowing and to understand that somewhere in this darkness there is break through moments or light.
Sometimes you can’t even tell where the light or the darkness is for you and it takes someone such as a coach to help identify this for you and to guide you through it.
Theres a few markers to watch for if you want to identify an area of your life to face a challenge.
Unchecked Emotions
Definite Statements
Repetitive Mistakes
Im going to leave this one here because I want to keep my blogs short, Mindset is something I can talk about forever and if I don’t stop now, I never will. Its something that will come back in another blog in the near future.
