Your Worst Enemy? Check Your Head First!

In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill instills in our head the following nugget of wisdom:  “Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve”.  Simple words but oh so true.  The path to progress undoubtedly begins in the mind.  This is why I am committed to keeping my mind in the right the place.  It’s not easy but it is absolutely necessary.  Money, family, friends, God—none of these resources are worthwhile if you cannot adjust your thinking to embrace them wisely in your life.  So what does my little soapbox moment have to do with rock climbing? 

If you cannot focus your mind on the task at hand, whether it be overcoming a seemingly insurmountable problem or pushing past your fear of falling and being smashed to bits on the cold, unforgiving rocks below, then you will get stuck.  We run the risk of missing important milestones that give us the encouragement  needed to keep pushing us onward whenever we allow ourselves to lose focus

So a disclaimer here, I’ve only ever been on two rock climbing trips and actually climbed a total of five times.  The trips were a year apart and both in Minnewaska State Park Preserve (upstate New York).  Did I mention I’m not a fan of heights or falling or getting smashed upon rocks?  What I do love though is the occasional challenge and the gorgeous outdoors.  Plus I get to hang out with family and friends.

This Labor Day weekend, I had a proud moment!  For the first time, I was able to reach the top and touch the carabiner before descending.  I’m not sure how it is indoors, but it gets real, fast, once you place your hands on the cold, hard, jagged rock that you intend to ‘conquer’.  For me, the first thought was, “Am I out of my mind to think this was ever a good idea?!”

I’m no Spiderman and all I have are rope, sticky shoes and a prayer!  I couldn’t help but think of other climbing movies, but…yeah…they ALL have scenes of folks being splattered.  Then somewhere along my climb, I’m thinking that I can barely do a push-up and my arms, though loyal, have begun to have doubts of their own.  My saving grace is the reminder that I’m not supposed to use my arms as my main source of power; I’m supposed to use my legs.  I’m also thankful for a lack of a gurjunkajunka butt (first time ever) because trying to haul both that and my bones up would have been a feat!

At this point, it’s clear that I’m losing the battle of focus, then I look down.  Nnnoooooo!!!!!  Rule number one—never look down.  I scream this at the TV all the time when this happens.  I drop an internal F-bomb then imagine me slipping and falling in the most, hmmm, inelegant way.  Panic doesn’t even ask to be brought in the game; it jumps right in and now I’m freaking stuck and scared out of my mind.  Thank God for Self-Preservation.  It swoops in, slaps Panic out cold and takes over.

I take several deep breaths to calm the physical response.  As I mentioned in my second article on anxiety, my mind is very in-tune with my body so I need to check myself quickly or else you would surely see me on the news with park rangers and firemen prying my frozen fingers from off the rocks in a daring rescue of this West Indian chick who went rock climbing!  Who sent me right?  Yeah…I thought about this too and the imagined shame was also instrumental in getting me moving.

By the way, this scenario happens a few times as I go up and down the cliff.  Like I’ve mentioned before, I’ve climbed a total of five times.  The first four I didn’t reach the top.  I was too scared and in my head.  I allowed the negative to chase away the positives.  I told myself that I couldn’t do it so I bailed at varying heights.  In my defense, each time I stopped, I was closer and closer to the top.  The fifth time I was about to bail.  It was too steep.  Even though I was so close to the carabiner, I was like “hell no, I’ve done enough”.  Even though my family and friends were cheering me on, even though I saw others with the same skill level as me do it, I told myself that there was something about myself that made it impossible for me to touch the carabiner.  I found excuses and not courage.

I thought of Napoleon Hill and his three feet from gold story.  All this is happening in mere milliseconds mind you.  The breathing does its job and I’m physically calm.  Then I do the most amazing thing—I trust.  I trust the rope, the belayer, God and most importantly, myself!  I mean, what were my choices? 1) Give in to fears and stay stuck or worse, actually slip and fall, or 2) Shake off the willies and trust that I have what it took to get to the top–that’s it.  Folks, I dug deep, sought out the sliver of foot holding and scrag of rock and pushed myself up to the top and high fived that biner!!!!

I was cheesing all the way down.  I know I was supposed to deliver the last post of the anxiety series but I didn’t want to lose this feeling.  I had to share right away!  So here goes.  This is my checklist for when I lose focus and am in danger of letting my fears and unideal circumstances get the better of me:

• Trust myself
• Trust my resources
• Take time out to get it together—short breaks are sometimes necessary to keep progressing
• Do not take a lot of time to get it together—when I took too long, it somehow validated the fears so I figured out the shorter the break, the better
• Take responsibility for my outcomes in life by reminding myself that the only one who almost psyched myself out was me.  Everyone else was cheering me on and I was in two sets of experienced hands (the belayer and God)
• Do not give up—cycle through the stop start routine but never stop
• Celebrate the small wins.  Even when I didn’t reach the top those other four times, I was proud to have faced my fears and tried
• Keep the big wins front and center in my mind and recognize that small wins are the practice runs for the big wins
• Expect doubt and develop ways to counteract it

If you never plan to go rock climbing, don’t worry.  Life gives us tons of opportunities to meet and exceed the milestones necessary to keep us moving on.  I’ve noticed this in driving, for instance.  When I first started driving, I would look in my blindside for too long and before you know it, there goes the car in the direction I didn’t want it to go.  When I’m on the interstate and I’m trying to switch lanes, I have to glance quickly to the sides and in the mirror, then move into the lane I want.  I have to correct for speed and other cars.  If I feel the speed is too fast, then I’ll move into a slower lane until I’m ready to try that left lane again; vice versa for going too slowly.  I refuse to try to keep up with the Vin Diesel wanna bees in their noisy Hondas trying to audition for a role in the Fast and Furious 99.  I also try to not think of horrible crashes when I notice erratic driving.  I focus on getting to my destination safely.

If you exercise, then you’ll definitely flex those focus muscles.  I used to stop when I began to feel the burn.  I was like, “Yup, I’m done, good job!”  Now, I try to push past the in-the-moment feeling and focus on the after.   Like I said, wherever life throws out challenges, there you will find your opportunities for success and progress!  I’m always interested in your own experiences so holla down below!

Thank you for reading,

Olanta.

Photo by Marc-Anthony Barton, Olanta Chandler © 2016 Just Me, Maybe You, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED