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One Response to Too much positive thinking?
The power of positive thinking is prolific in our culture. It is extolled in the works of W. Clement Stone (Success Through Positive Mental Attitude), Anthony Robins (Personal Power), Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich), Og Mandino (The Greatest Salesman in the World), Rhonda Byrne (The Secret), and many others. It has become so prolific that scientists have begun to study how and why it works (or doesn't), and what they have discovered may surprise you.
When we think of positive thinking we often think of positive self-talk. Positive self-talk and its brother, negative self-talk, has us declaring what is or what will be. We may say that "I can win the race," or "I am too weak to complete the marathon." These are declarative statements and can be effective in achieving an outcome, either good or bad. Scientists have found, however, that more effective than declarative self-talk is Interrogative self-talk. In this form of self-talk, rather than making a statement we ask a question. We may say "Can I give a great presentation?"
In a groundbreaking 2010 study Dr. Kenji Naguchi and others at the University of Mississippi proved the power of Interrogative self-talk. They showed that subjects primed with an interrogative mindset solved 50% more anagram puzzles than those primed with a declarative mindset. Further studies showed that subjects with an interrogative predisposition solved twice as many anagrams as those without. Scientists believe there are two reasons that this is the case.
1) Interrogative self-talk elicits answers that contain strategies and summon resources to accomplish the goal. 2) Interrogative self-talk surfaces intrinsic motivations and elicits reasons that one desires the outcome.
Researchers have also found that too much or too little positivity is counter productive. Barb Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina is a world leading authority on the subject of positivity. According to Dr. Fredrickson, negativity narrows our vision for tactical survival in the moment, while positivity broadens our ideas about possible actions and increases our creativity. Fredrickson's research has shown that a ratio of positive to negative emotions between 3:1 and 10:1 yields better overall well-being that ratios outside this range. Too much negativity weighs you down. Too much positivity leads to delusions and robs you of feedback that you need to improve.
More optimism also leads to higher performance and better resilience. Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania is the originator of Positive Psychology, which is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. In one of his famous studies, Seligman discovered that optimistic salesmen outsell their more pessimistic counterparts by 37% and are twice as likely to not quit their jobs. So, optimism improves performance and yields longevity.
Seligman also found in his studies that people's explanatory style have a big impact on whether they give up quickly or not. People with pessimistic explanatory styles see setbacks as permanent, pervasive, and personal. An optimistic explanatory style is upbeat and sees setbacks as temporary and situational.
So, what does this have to do with climbing. Well, we can use this information to create a mindset with the right dose of optimism that leads to optimal performance and can have us climbing and staying psyched about climbing for as long as possible. Here are some tips to help you put this knowledge into practice in your climbing.
1) Practice interrogative self-talk. When you are thinking about your next climb, rather than tell yourself that you can do it, ask yourself if you are ready for it. Try listing 5 reasons why you are ready. This will help you be/get prepared and give you the confidence needed to send it.
2) Understand and monitor your positivity ratio. Go to Dr. Fredrickson's website (http://positivityratio.com/) and find out your positivity ratio. Are you between 3:1 and 10:1? You can track this over time to see where you are. If you are too positive, consider what things are not going as well as you'd like and try and understand why. If you are too negative, try reflecting on what is going well and being grateful for all that is good in your life.
3) Work on your explanatory style. When a setback such as failing on a climb occurs ask yourself whether the failure is permanent, pervasive, and personal. Convince yourself that it is not.
4) Recognize when you truly mess up. If you fail on a route because of lack of training or because you lost focus, fess up. Think about how to fix that for next time. Remember, negative emotions provide us critical negative feedback that keeps us growing and thriving.
I hope that you found this article useful and that you can put some of the knowledge in it to use in your climbing. What do you think?
What drives us to rock climb?
The following is an excerpt from Jeff Elison and my book Vertical Mind.
"It appears as though the joy of accomplishment, which psychologists refer to as "competence motivation," is very important to climbers in keeping them engaged in and motivated to train for climbing. Competence motivation is recognized by psychologists as a fundamental and powerful source of human motivation. For me, personally, I love the feeling of reaching my climbing goals. I love even the thought of reaching my climbing goals. I find it very satisfying to send a sport route that I have been projecting. I love sending a traditional route in good style. I love sending a boulder problem that initially seemed impossible for me. I get very inspired by climbing wild features that seem improbable and exciting. The joy of accomplishment provides fuel to sustain this inspiration and translates inspiration into the training and effort required to make those dreams reality.
You get inspired by things that either feel or look impossible, or at least appear challenging to you. You get excited by the thoughts and visions of yourself in the throes of doing such things. You anticipate the feeling of joy you will experience when you clip the anchors, grab that finishing jug, or cruise the crux pitch. At some level, you find joy in accomplishing something extreme."
Importance of a Pre-climb Ritual
Recently, I gave a workshop on mental training for climbing, using some of the constructs that Jeff Elison and I cover in our book, Vertical Mind. One portion of the workshop focused on mindsets required for climbing. In it, I broke out three distinct mindsets that we worked on:
Pre-climbing mindset Mindset for delicate climbing Mindset for dynamic climbing
In this article I will focus on the pre-climbing mindset and cover the others in future articles.
Most climbers experience some sort of pre-climb anxiety before they get on a route that will challenge them physically and mentally. The severity of this anxiety can range from very mild to paralyzing. The pre-climb anxiety in most cases is due to fear of falling and fear of failure, and the severity of the anxiety is related to the experience the climber has with falling and failure. The more experience with falling, the lower the anxiety around falling is. The same is true for failure. Interestingly enough, from informal surveys I have done, fear of falling seems to be more of an issue for relatively new climbers, while fear of failure (performance anxiety) tends to be more of an issue for very experienced climbers.
I have coached climbers with severe pre-climb anxiety and a technique that I have found helps them is the use of a pre-climb ritual. Most of the climbers I have coached experience the highest levels of anxiety in the time between when they find they “are up” to climb and when they are engaged in the act of climbing. As such, the pre-climb ritual is designed to help them get through this brief but critical time. It is in this time that they had sometimes in the past opted to climb something easier or maybe TR the climb rather than lead it. The goal is to achieve a calm mindset prior to climbing and avoid a mindset that either causes avoidance or undermines the climbers ability to climb well.
Rock Climbing Books To Achieve Your Climbing Goals
There are many different types of rock climbing, usually graded by the type of equipment that is used. Because rock climbing includes so much specialist safety equipment and knowledge about how to use it and the best places to climb, the best way to try it out is with a rock climbing books.
A rock climbing book will give you best tips and help you achieve a lifetime goal of finishing a rock climb and build memories that will last forever. As a rock climber, Don McGrath offers his incredible rock climbing experiences in his Vertical Mind Book.
Getting correct climbing training as of professional instructors will definitely leads to climbing safer and filled with fun. The expert climbing excellence may be attained through utilizing the instructions in its right perception and also making regular methods about the same.
The Vertical Mind Book is an all-new, extensive guide to constant climbing improvement. Climbing requires diverse health and fitness. For example, power to execute almost impossible single moves, together with endurance to sustain such techniques. Through careful timing, the technique mentioned in the book enables climbers to concurrently develop a high level of each aspect of fitness. The mixed effect is the performance peak: a temporary, but significant boost in climbing fitness that help the the climber to attain never-before-seen levels of overall performance.
The rock climbing book is about more than just training. While preparation is important, climbing is a performance sport. At the conclusion of the day, what matters most is basically that you achieve much better performance on the rock. This resource will help you discover ways to select inspiring goals, how to tailor your planning accordingly, and how to maximize your results on the sharp end, so you can build your climbing dreams a reality.
Get started today on your own individual path to steady climbing improvement by ordering Vertical Mind Book and achieve your climbing goal.