SELF-CONFIDENCE

Perhaps the best inoculation against over anxiety is self-confidence. It will not necessarily help you to cope with anxiety once you are suffering from it, but it will reduce the probability of your becoming anxious in the first place. Although once person's self-confidence varies from situation to situation, it is relatively stable within each of those situations. For example, some people are very confident on well-protected overhangs but much less so on poorly protected slabs, while for others the situation may be reversed.

However, 'slab' people are likely always to lack self-confidence when faced with big butch overhangs, and
their feelings about climbing slabs are unlikely to change this, no matter how difficult they are (within reason). Although this might seem fairly obvious, it does have one quite important implication. Mental skills, like physical skills, are specific to the context in which you train them. Another implication of the relatively enduring nature of self-confidence is that you cannot enhance it overnight. It takes quite a lot of hard work and planning to do so. Unfortunately, it does not seem to take quite so much hard work and planning to change it in the other direction! The most powerful influence upon self-confidence is your previous experience. Consequently, a very good way to improve your confidence about a 'big' routes which are similar in style to it but which starts off easy and gradually become more difficult as you go down the list. Since the weather is not a great respecter of plans, you should also include wet-weather alternatives in your program, together with any physical and skill training, which might be appropriate. Perhaps the most important thing about setting goals for yourself in this way is that you must perceive the goals to be realistic and worthwhile. Remember that routes which appear to be realistic when you are sitting at home reading the guidebook often do not appear quite the same when you are standing at the bottom of them!

Once you have got the basic idea of goal setting, you can use it in much more subtle ways to focus your
attention upon specific aspects of your climbing technique, or your mental approach to a route. This requires you to be much more analytical about your strengths and weaknesses as a climber. However, the dividends of such an approach can be enormous, because what you are essentially doing is taking a negative statement about your present performance and transforming it into a positive statement, which sets a goal for your future performance. For example, I am essentially a slow and cautious climber. When I am going well this is not usually a very big problem, but when I am climbing poorly I waste a great deal of energy literally just hanging about. Consequently, a very good goal for me to set when I am climbing poorly might be always to 'go for it' as soon as I have placed a runner. Another good way to enhance your confidence about a specific route is to watch someone else do it first. Even better, if you get the chance, watch several people. IN the case of big mountain routes, it may be enough if you simply know other people who have done the route and can talk to them about it: the most important thing is that you are able to identify with them. Consequently, leading after a friend who is just a little bit better than you can often be quite a good strategy for enhancing your confidence about a 'new grade' but watching an exceptional performer leap up it three moves at a time will probably not be!

At a more general level, imagining yourself successfully climbing something can also be a very positive
influence upon self-confidence. Some people find it very difficult to form images, which are well behaved. However, with practice anyone can learn to use imagery. It is just that some people need more practice than others. You can speed up the process by always relaxing for a few minutes before attempting to rehearse any thing mentally. It will also help if you start by imaging only things with which you are very familiar. Remember: the more success you achieve, the more confident you will become about imaging and the easier imagery will come. Another thing, which will help you to be more successful in using imagery, is to obtain as much information as you can about routes in advance, so that you can make your images more detailed and vivid. Collecting such information is also very important in enabling you to plan alternatives into any programme of goals which you set yourself. IF you do not do this and your partner does not want to do your first choice route, all your mental rehearsal and preparation will be
wasted.

Finally, always try to think positively about your climbing. Instead of saying you cannot do something, try
to work out what you need in order to be able to do it; then work out a programme of goals that will enable you to achieve whatever it is you need.