This coming Monday the 20th, I’ll be hosting a group mindset coaching session where I’ll help you decrease performance anxiety in climbing.
Here are the details:
Performance Anxiety Workshop
It’ll be a live call on Zoom for about 75 minutes. In the first 15 minutes I’ll talk about the common ways performance anxiety shows up for us, where it comes from, and what to do about it. Then I’ll do some individual coaching with the group members so everyone can learn from each other’s processes.
- Topic: Performance Anxiety – How to Have Less of It So You Can Flow
- Date: Monday, May 20th
- Time: 4-5:15pm MDT
- Zoom Link: details given after you sign up
- Recorded for All Who Sign Up
My Experience with Performance Anxiety
Performance anxiety is something I’ve experienced a whole lot of, whether it’s been as a pianist, a singer, or in climbing.
I used to get sick to my stomach every time I’d tie in to a project I was trying to redpoint.
I’d get adrenaline rushes that would make me shaky, sweaty, and my heart would flutter. I couldn’t think straight or breathe deeply and it would end in me overgripping with sewing machine legs.
Not super conducive to sending.
Now I have tools I use that actually stop the performance anxiety in its tracks.
It’s pretty amazing actually, and it’s all because of the coaching I’ve received and the coaching I do on myself all the time. That’s what we’ll work on together in this upcoming group coaching session.
I definitely experienced performance anxiety on this climb, Ambushed 5.13a, in Red Rocks
How to Decrease Performance Anxiety
We get anxious when we’re about to perform – or while we’re performing – because we care about what we’re doing. It matters to us how we perform, so we put pressure on ourselves like our lives depend on it.
And then we have a stress response: cortisol, adrenaline, nerves.
It’s WAY easier to be calm about performing and get into a flow state when we don’t perceive the stakes to be so high.
There are a ton of tools we can use to help lower our expectations of SENDING or WINNING and thereby decreasing our performance anxiety. I’m going to lay out 3 tools for you here.
1) Focus on Your Breath
I know, I know, breathe, they say. How obvious.
But it actually is the most important thing you can do to stay present at any time of your life, including when you’re gearing up to climb on your project and WHILE you’re climbing.
5-Second Breath Practice
The next time you feel anxious about a climb, stop what you’re doing and take an in-breath that’s 5 seconds long. Then breathe out for 5 seconds. Do that 5 times.
It will make you feel calmer, allow you to think more clearly, and gain some perspective.
Breathe While Climbing
Try focusing on your breath while you’re climbing. This makes your body calmer and your mind clearer. From the very first move of the climb, breathe as deeply and audibly as you can.
Yes, it might be embarrassing to do this, but please just try it. As your belayer or your bouldering buds to remind you to keep breathing throughout because it’s easy to forget.
2) Have Process Goals
A process goal is something that is not oriented around the outcome. Basically, a process goal is anything but the goal of sending the climb.
Since sending is the ultimate goal (for most people) and the pressure, expectations, and performance anxiety come from this ultimate goal of sending, focusing on something other than that – something that’s more in your control – can take the pressure off.
Examples of Process Goals
- Trying as hard as you can
- Being brave on one clip (I had this goal yesterday)
- Doing all the moves with however many falls or takes
- Doing moves even if you’re pumped and uncomfortable
- Focusing on one move at a time and staying present
- Taking 1 or more falls intentionally
- Breathing the whole way up
- Having a positive attitude and not tossing wobblers
When I feel myself getting nervous on a climb, I’ve practiced process goals so much now that the only thing I have to tell myself to get rid of the jitters is this:
“All I have to do is try my hardest.”
And then I remember I GET to go up there and try hard, which I genuinely love doing, and the pressure disappears.
3) Give Yourself Credit for Small Wins
Even if you have those process goals and you complete those process goals, if you don’t give yourself credit for them, there’s really no point.
“Yeah, I took a fall, big whoop. I should have sent already.”
“I got pumped and kept going, but I didn’t end up sending, so I failed.”
You can see that even if you have those process goals, but you’re still truly only focused on the big goal of sending, you’re never going to feel any sense of satisfaction… until you send.
And that’s why SENDING IS SO CRITICALLY IMPORTANT TO YOU.
Because you only get that endorphin release and that sense of self worth when you’ve sent the thing.
But you can cultivate those feelings of satisfaction, pride, and joy along the way–throughout the process–by taking credit for the smaller accomplishments.
Celebrate yourself every time you try hard or keep a cool head, or whatever your process goals are. That way, the next time you’re at the bottom of a climb feeling nervous, you’ll know that even if you just do a single scary clip or breathe the whole way up, you’ll be rewarded with those positive feelings you’re craving.
Performance Anxiety Workshop
All of this is what we’ll work on in my upcoming Group Coaching session on Performance Anxiety, so come join us if you want help! It’ll be a live call on Zoom for about 75 minutes. In the first 15 minutes I’ll talk about the common ways performance anxiety shows up for us, where it comes from, and what to do about it.
Then I’ll do some individual coaching with the group members so everyone can learn from each other’s processes.
- Topic: Performance Anxiety – How to Have Less of It So You Can Flow
- Date: Monday, May 20th
- Time: 4-5:15pm MDT
- Zoom Link: details given after you sign up
- Recorded for all who sign up
About the Author, Neely Quinn
Neely Quinn is the owner and founder of TrainingBeta.com, the host of the TrainingBeta Podcast, a Certified Professional Coach (life coaching), and a nutritionist specializing in rock climbers. She has been climbing since 1997 and she’s climbed up to 5.13c and V9. She lives in Longmont, Colorado with her husband (and tech guy for TrainingBeta), Seth Lytton and their heeler mix, Willa.
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