UKBouldering.com

Performance as a measure of Self Worth (Read 6549 times)

monkoffunk

Offline
  • ****
  • forum abuser
  • Posts: 721
  • Karma: +60/-0
  • sponsored by 90% lindt and vitamin D
I doubt that anyone sits down with a calculator and works out their self worth based on previous achievements or non achievements. An awareness of how certain things make you feel probably means you can modulate how your self worth develops, however I think it’s likely that someone who puts a huge amount of effort into performance and progressing their personal limits will almost undoubtedly have some modulation of their own sense of self worth by what they do or fail to do. This may be for better or worse. I’m not sure it can just be dismissed as bollocks, it’s probably just something that just happens despite you, rather than because you’ve decided it defines you.

Hopefully it will be just one of many elements from life that define your sense of worth, so maybe you’ll make it up in other areas when you aren’t doing so well in climbing. Possibly it becomes a problem with climbers in particular who maybe tend to obsesses and overemphasise the importance of something pointless and arbitrary. Recognising this might help use it as a positive tool.

For example I can draw positives from my last failed session trying to redpoint current project, because I made a tiny bit of micro beta progress and had a great day out with friends, doing lots of moves on rock. Even though my primary goal of the day was the redpoint, and that failed, by choosing to focus on the positives of the day it becomes something that will in some small way improve my self worth, although it’s not something I ever actively set out to directly change or measure (if you ever could).

Sorry, another rambling post but hope it makes some sense..)
« Last Edit: February 24, 2019, 09:24:15 am by monkoffunk »

shark

Offline
  • *****
  • Administrator
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 8697
  • Karma: +625/-17
  • insect overlord #1
This article makes some good points and advice on the subject:

https://www.brianmac.co.uk/mobile//articles/scni38a6.htm

Fiend

Offline
  • *
  • _
  • forum hero
  • Abominable sex magick practitioner and climbing heathen
  • Posts: 13413
  • Karma: +676/-67
  • Whut
Good topic, I like it.

This sort of discussion is why I always bang on about "chase the route / problem / experience rather than the grade".  Of course then the route / problem / experience can be pretty damn challenging and require a lot of focus and effort and training.....but I'm sure it's easier to be motivated and maintain the focus when you're driven by that 'authentic desire'. Making that desire as personal and "true to self" as possible is key too, in my experience.


andy popp

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 5525
  • Karma: +347/-5
I like this topic too. I remember Nick Dixon going through a phase (many years ago) of struggling with the feeling that his climbing was too driven by eqo; that is desire was becoming inauthentic (he may talk about this in The Power of Climbing?). I've always felt ego was a natural and even positive part of all human character.

I was terrible at sport at school - weak and clumsy - and it was genuinely a surprise when I started to realize I could be quite good at climbing. I used to say that if I'd ever climbed anything hard then it was largely by accident, in the sense that I was never that focused in setting and pursuing goals etc. I largely just climbed things I wanted to climb. But I would be stupid and disingenuous to pretend that there were never any psychic or emotional rewards from peer recognition etc. Like I said, we all have an ego. Its keeping them balanced that matters.

I think it helped that I was almost always climbing people who were much better than me, so I was never really under any illusions. Second, I think I was lucky in my childhood, it left me pretty secure in myself. I think I largely have my parents to thank for that, even if can't really point to what it is that they did.

user deactivated

  • Guest
Great posts Monk  / Andy I totally agree. without our ego we’d be missing a conscious mind, it must have become related to the word egotistical over time and have developed negative connotations. After all ‘egos must be like arseholes, everybody has one’. The self - worth thing is a bit misleading. I’m not sure it’s a decision someone consciously makes to measure themselves, but an unconscious reinforcement of a pre conditioned sense of worthlessness or not being good enough. The strive for achievement would be a coping strategy to deal with that. Although I can think of that character in catch 22 that is constantly weighing up himself and others in terms of ‘black eyes and feathers in his cap’

On another note I quite like this classic poem:
This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
    They may not mean to, but they do.   
They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself.
 

tomtom

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 20282
  • Karma: +641/-11
Larkin was a miserable c*nt though...

Bradders

Offline
  • *****
  • forum hero
  • Posts: 2785
  • Karma: +135/-3
I think when you dedicate yourself to something it's only natural that you form part of your identity and, therefore, self-worth around both the activity itself and your level of success in it. In fact I would say doing so is a healthy and positive step, in the sense that performing at your best requires a certain level of inate personal drive; I.e. if your goal is to climb problem X and you convince yourself that you are capable of doing so you stand a much better chance of doing it than if you think it's impossible!

Personally I've often felt a sense that I can only describe as 'I'm not the climber I should be', which really translates as 'I've not done the things I believe I'm capable of'. I view this as a good thing; it's my subconscious telling me I need to try harder!

Where it becomes a problem is when your expectations of yourself become disconnected from reality, and that's why comparing yourself to others is such a bad idea.

It’s a personal mission, stupid to compare yourself to others.

I wish I could say I always have this attitude to climbing, but I don't and it's something I've really struggled with.

The most stupid example I have was whilst trying a boulder called Vicious Streak at Caley last winter, a problem which was right at my limit at the time. I'd got some beta from a friend who'd tried it with one or two others recently but otherwise it hadn't really had any attention for years. I started trying it, mentioned it to a handful of people or others saw me at the crag trying it and before I knew it it had seen 3/4 ascents in the space of a few weeks. I felt like I'd been robbed! The fact that the others who'd done it were all both friends and far superior climbers meant little to me, I just felt totally jealous and frustrated at my own inability to get it done. I didn't want to burn anyone else off, I just wanted to do it!

This was an example of my self-drive and value being clouded and intensified by comparison to others, and it wasn't helpful at all. I've since gotten a lot better at separating these things out but it's still an issue. The main two strategies I've used for this are 1) getting really focused about what I want to do, I.e. sticking with the problems that I care about as opposed to just going to try the latest thing on Instagram, and 2) just trying to be genuinely happy for other people when they get things done, and turning that into inspiration for my own endeavours!

All that said, I do think comparing yourself to others can have some positives. As Dave Macleod points out in 9/10 climbers, if all your mates climb grade x then you probably will too.

Of course, none of that has anything to do with how you define yourself as a person in the round, which is surely taking it a bit far. I mean climbing for me has innumerable side benefits in terms of health and fitness, amongst other things, but I think that's where it's really important to have other things in your life beyond your chosen activity which help you define yourself, e.g. job, family, spouse, other interests, etc.

user deactivated

  • Guest
Interesting stuff Bradders, I believe it does link to how a person defines themselves in the round. Particularly the higher level the ‘athlete’ the bigger the correlation between sense of self and performance.

 

SimplePortal 2.3.7 © 2008-2024, SimplePortal