Doing Hard Things: Rock Climbing

I think it's important to define the idea of "hard". Hard or difficult things are impossible achievements. Climbing Mount Everest, turning a startup into a successful company, speaking a foreign language fluently, or most pertinently to me, sending level red routes at the local rock climbing gym. 

At the beginning of this year, I sent my first red route. In climbing, gyms in different countries have varying grading systems that indicate the difficulty of a climb. In Paris, it usually goes from yellow, orange, green, blue, red, black to purple, in ascending order of difficulty. After 2 years of indoor bouldering, I sent my first red route and I had to buy new climbing shoes. I used to wonder, how much climbing does one have to do in order to split open the rubber sole and leather upper of their shoes, revealing a hole at the tip designed to scrape, scratch and smear all sorts of surfaces. It turns out, about 2 years of consistent indoor gym climbing. Two months ago, I even started training pull-ups. I really resisted the idea at the beginning of the year, when I sent my first red problem. What makes climbing a sport that I, as someone who can struggle with commitment and consistency, stick with and stay dedicated to? I think it comes back to how I understood "difficult" things and what I have learned about my ability to do them. 

I didn't come to love rock climbing overnight. It wasn't un coup de foudre and I have had many month-long hiatuses so far. In coaching, we are taught to identify which stage a client is at in the Transtheoretical Model of Change: 1) Precontemplation, 2) Contemplation, 3) Preparation, 4) Action, 5) Maintenance, 6) Termination. There is also the possibility of Relapse. I think this model elaborates on the stages before implementing change but could do with further explanation on what happens in Maintenance, a stage that includes many smaller but crucial processes within it. After my first rock climbing session, as a complete novice with no technique and hardly any upper body strength, I came away from it feeling the physiological benefits of doing exercise without much appreciation of the lifestyle changes it could encourage in me. The process of finally integrating climbing as a weekly event and now a core part of my life has been the success of many cycles of the Transtheoretical model playing out within Maintenance, where I choose to make space for climbing time and time again. This article talks more about the model and the "recycling" nature of Maintenance. 

At first this was difficult and I didn't enjoy it that much. I wasn't very good at it and it was terrifying at times. I would get scraped up sliding off the wall and even end up with cuts and bruises. Climbing can be daunting as a sport. You are lifted many, many meters off the ground and you have only your strength and willpower to trust. When you no longer fear falling because you've simply fallen enough times to know this is not actually going to hurt you (unless you don't follow proper falling protocol - very important!), you fear that you don't have the strength or the balance or the dynamism to pull off the move needed to send a problem. I was convinced that certain grades were beyond my reach and never even tried them. I'm just starting out and some moves are just too advanced for me. What then became difficult about climbing was feeling defeated before I even began. This is where the phrase: "Try hard", felt the most applicable.

There are many reasons I love this phrase. The most important being its emphasis on the process and on effort. Trying hard isn't about achieving, it's about giving it your all. Sending the problem isn't the point. Believing in yourself, giving it all you've got and perseverance simply building towards something become the goals. It's not even about the something, it's about the going towards it. Finding the process of working on yourself and towards something worthwhile. Maybe this time when you launch yourself towards that seemingly impossible hold, you do miss it. You may even latch onto it and slip off. Maybe you catch it but you can find your footing. In all these tries, what matters is the trying. Experimenting, moving towards a send and learning something along the way, no matter how big or small, makes it worthwhile.

What I had learned about myself is that if I found something to be difficult, I wouldn't even try. It felt inconceivable to me to try and do something if I had already decided it was too hard for me to do. With "try hard", the focus shifts from the result to the experience. As long as I gave it my all and I really tried, that's where I would apply myself. After all, sending a problem, like securing any sort of result, is not entirely within my control. I can only decide how hard I want to try at something because of what it means to me. I can never guarantee that the trying will mean sending and I don't need to. The goal of learning something, about the sport, about myself, about what I struggle with in the face of difficulty, could be an even worthier pursuit. 

It's been 2 and a half years since I started climbing regularly. I think I fall off the wall at least 10 times every 2 hour session. I climb on average twice a week. A moderate estimate would be about 1,300 falls since I first got on a climbing wall. What happened in between my "failed" attempts, throwing myself at the problem repeatedly without reaching "the goal", was that I haphazardly fell into a sport, hobby, lifestyle and community that continues to give me so much meaning and purpose. In that figuring it out bit by bit, I learned that doing hard things is just that - doing something, little by little, until you do a "hard" thing. If I focus on trying, I am in the process and not the result. Climbing rewards that process. This idea of a "hard" thing, finally sending a red grade problem, once seemed impossible. I would like to send black problems in the future. It's a hard thing to do, but I'm maintaining the change. I'll keep at it. One red at a time. I still struggle doing red problems but I tell myself to try them anyway. I've even tried a few black problems and managed to do the start. Sometimes I would redo blue problems I have already done and not send them. Sometimes I would forget how to do problems altogether and have to relearn the beta. This cyclic nature of progress, working at it, makes the growth rewarding. Believing that there might just be something I could do, that I could try really hard, makes it all feel a little less impossible. 

I hope you are all believing in your ability to move towards that impossible, that things being hard is a reason for a greater reward knowing that you have tried your very best to move towards that direction.