Marginal Gains or How I learned to stop worrying and love the process.

Project (noun): An individual enterprise that is carefully planned to achieve a particular aim.

Success (noun): The accomplishment of an aim or purpose.

Climbing isn't always easy. Sometimes when climbing stops being easy, and further progress seems just out of reach, a project is born.

A project is a climb or problem, that one is working but has not finished yet. The often overlooked side of finding a project is the admission to oneself that this has happened. This decision is important. Climbers often try problems and move on without ever succeeding. Sometimes a problem grabs you and becomes the object of one's desires. When this desire coincides with a belief that a climb can be climbed a project is born.

Many climbers struggle with projecting. I used to believe you either were or were not a "projector". Some people are willing deal with the repeated failure knowing it is in the pursuit of something greater, and others can't. It's that simple. This year I have tried to get better at projecting and no longer do I think it is as black and white. The difference between projectors and non-projectors is mindset.

With climbing like every sport, it is easy to measure your success. You clipped the chains, topped out or matched the top hold. The obvious conclusion to jump to is that not doing these things counts as failure - You didn't finish the climb, so you must have failed. This isn't the case. The definition of success above states that it is the accomplishment of an aim. While the main aim may not have been achieved, that does not mean secondary ones were not. Maybe it is the furthest you have ever got on a slab, you may have made a toe hook work when previously you couldn't, or it may just be an achievement to pull onto your first E1 because before now you have always been scared. 

It is these other sorts of successes, the marginal gains, that separate the projector from the not. When you are able to see the positive in the small wins then you can project. Full sessions falling off become worthwhile if you made one small move, discovered a new foothold, or even just feel less pumped getting to the same point as before.

Ultimately the key to becoming a projector is finding the positives where others would find the negatives. So, keep putting one foot in front of the other, and when they both fall off keep looking on the bright side until they don't fall off anymore.