False dilemmas and finding the middle way in climbing

I’d like to talk about a video we made recently. The video is about falling off scary boulders, but there are several points that are just as relevant to how we approach challenges more broadly.

Firstly, beware of all-or-nothing thinking: you don’t have to climb the whole boulder or quit if it’s too hard. Instead, you could climb half of the boulder, two thirds, or just try the first few moves. Climbing an 8-metre boulder might seem like a tall order, but if you can jump off at any time, you can get the ideal challenge level. 

Secondly, what does an ideal challenge level look like? I don’t dive into all the details in the video, but I can’t stress this enough: more challenge doesn’t always mean more learning or development, there’s a sweet-spot of optimal challenge. You don’t learn maths quicker by starting with post-graduate work and you don’t get stronger by fingerboarding with an extra 40kg added – you’re more likely to get frustrated, despondent or injured. Instead, you need to get the challenge level, or the training stimulus, just right. The same goes with psychological challenge: over-challenge can lead to negative experiences, ingrained fear, burnout or even trauma.

(There’s a lot of self-awareness and theory that goes into recognising an optimal challenge level, but that’s another blog!)

You’ve probably noticed that the first point helps the second: the more we break the challenge down the easier it is to get it right. And we can take this a lot further: just as we don’t have to deal in whole routes or boulders, we don’t have to deal in whole moves. If grabbing the next hold seems too big a challenge, perhaps simply touching it, or just reaching for it is a manageable step. You could break it down even further and just try to hang the holds, or hold body positions on the rock. Breaking moves down like this not only helps us get the challenge level right, but also recognise progress and learning. Your goal is probably bigger than these tiny little steps, but that’s the point – we make progress in many small steps, not one giant bound.

If you notice a theme arising here, it’s perhaps that sense of a middle way – a third option when we’re falsely confronted with just two. And in fact, it’s not just the third option: when you look for it, it’s amazing how often plenty of nuances lie between the two choices we’re given. Spotting a false dilemma or finding that Goldilocks zone of challenge level is like adding colour to black-and-white thinking: we develop a richer and more nuanced picture that also looks more like the real thing.

Check out the video below.