By Steve Bechtel
The birds they sang at the break of day; Start again I heard them say.
- Leonard Cohen
Last year did not go as planned. This year can be better… if you let it.
My friend Neil Anderson, one of those great strength coaches you’ve never heard of, says that more people are killed by sharks each year than complete their New Year’s resolutions. Although he’s probably only half right, the point hits close to home. If you depended on a resolution last year, you’re probably not that pleased with the results.
The fact is that few of us are getting less busy, younger, or are getting injured less frequently. How do we keep from just packing it in like so many of our aging friends? By having better habits and tactics. By not using false constructs to pretend we’ll succeed. By accepting that the easy days are behind us.
Let’s make one thing really clear: the person responsible for your success this year is the same one from last year, so you might adjust the goal accordingly. It’s OK to admit that the “New Year New You” plan wasn’t your cup of tea.
The good people over at Precision Nutrition have a good structure for setting and reaching milestones in fitness and in habit change. It’s so simple, you might not even think it’s worth trying. But if you failed to reach the milestones you wanted, simpler might be much better.
The method is this:
- Pick a simple and clear change that you will make daily or during every training session. For example, “drink a glass of water each morning.”
- On a scale of 1-10, rate how likely you are to be able to complete this change every single time. 1 would be never, and 10 would be for sure, every time. You can probably get that water in nine out of ten days, right?
- If you don’t give yourself at least an 8 of 10 on the behavior, shrink the difficulty of the change, and then go for it. Don’t think you can drink a full glass? How about a six-ounce glass? Four ounces?
Another example: Let’s say you had a hard time sticking with a training program last year, and the resolution this year is to do every single workout you plan between now and March. Looking at all the sessions, are you going to be able to fit all of them in your schedule? Have you built up the capacity for this kind of work? More to the point: On a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to be able to complete all of these sessions as planned? If you answered 7 or below, make it simpler. Instead of “doing all sessions as planned,” you switched it to “exercising four days per week?” Or what if you switched entirely to “climbing 1000 feet per week,” or “lifting 10,000 pounds per session?”
Look, this seems like elementary stuff, but most of the athletes we deal with as coaches could see amazing results if they simply did all of the sessions in a plan, at all, regardless of intensity.
Have a problem with drinking too many of your calories? What about setting a water-drinking goal?
Have a problem getting enough sleep? What about a bedtime goal that is ten minutes earlier than your mean?
If your goal is to do just about anything, you will generally have an easier time with it if you set it up as an “approach” goal rather than an “avoidance” goal.
Like the water example above, it’s much easier to add water to your daily habit than to constantly try to avoid Orange Mocha Frappucinos. If you drink enough water, you won’t have room for the sweet drinks.
This trick works on lots of fronts. Want to avoid couch time? Add time stretching on the floor to your day.
Want to eat less sugar? Pursue more protein instead.
Want to wake earlier? What might you do to make this easier?
And remember, if you don’t think you can do the behavior 8 out of ten times, make it easier.
I like this method when dealing with fear or even performance anxiety on the rock. It’s popular these days to address fear of falling through a process called progressive desensitization, essentially falling on purpose enough times that falling becomes “no big deal.” Although this does work sometimes for some people, I prefer to address this problem first through successful execution of the sporting task. In climbing that means leading routes.
When we are dealing with fear, which is a real and primal response, we want to do just about anything but the fear-inducing task. This is where people end up toproping most of their climbs (in order to get so comfortable on them that fear is suppressed), or training to some insane level of fitness (so that being over-strong gives them confidence). The issue here is that we’re ignoring the demands of the performance environment, and when we step into even slightly unfamiliar or difficult terrain, our physical preparation goes off the rails.
Far better to pick a route you are almost certain you can lead, and then go lead it. This usually manifests in a person that can toprope, say, 5.11 leading routes that might be just 5.5. But leading. And confident of their ability to climb through the slight stress of that lead.
An approach goal might then be to lead past 20 bolts, regardless of physical difficulty. I am not avoiding fear of falling (by toproping), but engaging with what leading is really like. Did 20 go OK last time? Now let’s do 30. 40. 50. Eventually, everyone gets better at stress management when they practice it carefully.
Same works for training physical qualities. We have to start where we are, practice things that slightly stretch our ability, and then stop the stress. Do I have a pretty good chance of executing on this exercise? Great. Am I trying to bench press 50 kilos more than ever before? Maybe not the best idea. Aiming toward an ideal is awesome. Making your goal be the proper steps toward that ideal is essential.
The problem with a goal built without a solid foundation (by having good habits and a realistic view of capabilities) is that when we end up facing the goal and realizing its difficulty, our minds tend to go into protective mode. They help us believe that goal wasn’t so good, and we can build up a litany of excuses for not reaching it. We see this play out time and time again:
“I’m going to go free El Cap” turns into “it was a learning trip and I knew going in I was just there for fun.”
“I’m going to climb all the routes in Hell Cave in a day” becomes, “I meant all the routes on the left side of the cave.”
“I’m going to climb 100 5.13s” becomes, “Grades are just numbers and I learned I am just way more into bouldering.”
The issue, long-term, is that we get good at making the excuses and not a lot better at executing the plans. What we want to do this year is bring that back a step.
We love the idea of what Jim Collins called the “big, hairy, audacious goal,” yet most of us are not able to deliver. Stepping back from dreaming to simply reaching tends to up our chances, and makes for a lot more rewarding feeling day-to-day.
This year, you can do great things. First, though, you have to win the moment. Then the hour, and the day. Finally, you can win the year.
Hold Fast,
Steve
ABOUT STEVE BECHTEL
Steve is the founder of Climb Strong, and is proud to be the worst coach on the Climb Strong team. A climber for nearly 40 years, he has traveled to globe bouldering, sport climbing, and doing first ascents of some of the world's biggest walls.
Steve's resolution, as of this very moment, is to finish COVID isolation without going bonkers...and to get to zero messages in his email inbox.
He is education director of the Performance Climbing Coach organization, and is the author of several books on training for climbing. He lives in Lander, Wyoming, with his wife Ellen, children Sam and Anabel, and a yellow lab who always brings the psych.