How do ego and rock climbing fit together?  Does your ego play into your rock climbing performance or is it something you can simply ignore?  Even if you think you’re a pretty low key climber who doesn’t have a chip on your shoulder, you may be surprised just how much your ego can effect your climbing performance as well as your overall development as a climber.

To help explain the role of ego in rock climbing performance, here’s an article from MasterRockClimber.com by Cristina Lizarazo of Conquer the Crux  that outlines exactly what the ego is, how it can effect your climbing, and what you can do to mitigate its negative effects.

What is Our Ego

According to Cristina, our ego is a false identity that we create for ourselves that relies on how other people view us.  The main issue with ego is that because it is a false identity we create for ourselves we fear having this identity challenged.

“Since our ego is so concerned with the way it’s perceived, it greatly fears anything that could prove that it is anything less than the identity it has created. Fear of failure and fear of judgment are the root of our egos.” -Cristina Lizarazo

How Your Ego Effects Your Climbing

Ultimately, it is this fear of being challenged or undermined that allows the ego to negatively effect your climbing.  As Cristina points out, because you don’t want your perception of yourself challenged, it can be easy to not step outside of your comfort zone due to fearing failure.  In the end, however, allowing our egos to effect us in this way is extremely limiting both in the present and in terms of your future development as a climber.

How to Manage Your Ego

Managing your ego is not easy and like most mental shifts in climbing takes consistent and deliberate work.  To help you do so, Cristina gives you some basic strategies to start combating the negative effects of the ego.  Primarily, her suggestions center on the idea of becoming comfortable with yourself and minimizing your desire to compare yourself to others.

As Cristina describes, by becoming more comfortable with the climber you currently are instead of fixating on the climber you want to be, you allow yourself to recognize your weaknesses and then address them by stepping out of your comfort zone.  As a result, you are actually working towards becoming the climber you want to be rather than dwelling on how other people perceive you.

Click through below to read more about how the ego and rock climbing interact.  Working on mental tactics like checking your ego may not be the most fun or easy to measure parts of training.  However, improving your mental game is one of the best ways to increase your climbing level and work towards reaching your ultimate potential.

Full Article: Ego and Rock Climbing

(photo courtesy of masterrockclimber.com)

Other Articles You Might Like:

• Vertical Mind Book Review by Dave Sheldon
• TBP 023 :: Arno Ilgner on Overcoming Fear and Ego in Climbing
• Don McGrath – Too Much Positive Thinking?
• How to Cope with Redpoint Nerves