Rock Climbing. 60 Minutes. 3 Life Lessons.

In the midst of COVID, I took upon a new hobby: rock climbing. A the outset, it looks pretty simple: all you have to do is climb a wall. As it turns out, it is not that simple.

(If you don't feel like reading, you can skip to the end of this article and watch my YouTube video)

Rock climbing is not just a physical challenge but is also a challenge to your mental boundaries. As I move forward in life, I like to keep expanding my understanding of how life works around me. Surprisingly, almost everything has a few underlying concepts that one will find in everything.

My life has two primary goals:

1. get to the truth of things
2. optimize the path towards success

Rock climbing taught me how to best think about optimization and core actions in life.

So here are the three life lessons I learned in less than 60 minutes (They still apply btw)

Growth needs time

The first time you climb that wall, you experience physical stress on your body. You identify the individual strengths of your muscles and understand how developed/underdeveloped your bodily areas are. As you climb more walls, you start to realize that your muscles are not the only ones at play here, but your mind is becoming more involved in the climb as well. You start assessing whether you can or cannot reach the next milestone in your pursuit of reaching the top and completing the rock climb. You start an internal dialogue with your brain regarding every part of your body, actively assessing how much energy you have left. As your rock climb gets difficult, you start experiencing fatigue, and you identify the limits of your human body. You either complete the rock climb or fall because you were out of energy or your technique was wrong. Still, you get up, learn, recover, and try again until you get it right.

This entire experience is a process, just like everything else in life. As an entrepreneur and product manager, I get to solve problems and overcome challenges daily. Some are easy, and some are hard, but the key here is understanding how growth happens. Growth happens slowly at first and then suddenly (thanks to the compounding effect), given that you consistently work on it. One insight into this process is the importance of recovery. I can work all I want, but there will come a time my energy will run out, and I will need to recharge. The conservation of energy is as crucial as the usage of energy. If there is an imbalance, growth will not happen.

Technique matters

We have all heard the term “work smart, not hard!” Well, it is right to a greater extent. In rock climbing, you can tell if someone is a beginner or a professional: observe their flow and how much effort they exert into the climb. Of course, your goal in rock climbing is to get to the top, but there is also another factor to optimize: EFFORT. In a nutshell, your actual goal is to get to the top by exerting the minimum amount of effort.

What differentiates good climbers from bad ones is their ability to master their technique and consume the minimum amount of energy to reach the top. The starting position, foot placement, body angle, flow, and all these variables need to be optimized to maximize the results.

Many people start climbing without analyzing. That is the wrong approach. What you do instead is stand in front of the wall, analyze the structure, plan the route, look for pitfalls, and only then start the climb. The more you engage the critical-thinking side of your brain, the more you will begin to identify options quickly and perfect your technique. Once you start climbing, many hypotheticals that you thought about will fail, but some will survive and will serve as foundations for your next steps. Then as you keep practicing, you will keep improving your technique. Of course, you have to work hard to learn how to work smart, and once you do, you will make hard things look easy.

Here is a small exercise I do every time I start a new task:

1. Write down the task you are about to do on a piece of paper.
2. Make a plan on how to best approach the task (create a guide for yourself)
3. Answer the following question: what might cause failures, and how to avoid them? (write at least five worst-case scenarios )
4. Once the basic blueprint is ready, give yourself a deadline and get to work!

That is it.

Recommendation: Try it out and share your experience on social media if you were able to learn something new about yourself - my bet is that you will learn a lot about yourself in the process.

Persistence

This lesson is one of my favorites because it tests your willpower and helps you understand your true capabilities. When you are one step away from finishing your climb, your body is in pain, and your grip hurts. All our body muscles are engaged, and you can see your destination but your body and mind are in constant conflict. Your mind is sending signals to your muscles to move, but your body is not reacting. If you give up now or make a small mistake, you will have to start all over again. It is quite the battle of the nerves, honestly. So how do you push further when your body is on the brink of failure? The answer is PERSISTENCE, with a bit of support.

There were many instances where I was two steps away from the top, and my body just gave up. There was so much lactic acid built up in my muscles that I was unable to move, but then there were other instances where I was about to give up, but two things helped me to the finish line:

1. I slowed down, reminded myself about all the times I achieved difficult feats, and started digging deeper into my motivations for that climb.
2. My friends and people around me cheered for me and told me that I could do it!

It was so interesting to see my body reacting to outside support and internal motivations. I did find that very empowering.

Next time when you find yourself close to quitting, ask yourself why you were doing it in the first place and try to find your cheerleaders.

It feels good to have supportive people around because a solid inner circle can help you achieve greatness.

P.S I also made a YouTube video:

Till next time.
Raheel