Life is truly what we make it. While some people are content with being content and staying in their "comfort bubble", there are others who seek more than staying where they are. These people are the ones who don't do well with limitations, and funny enough, will seek to limit the limitations placed on them. Great thinkers modern and in history will dedicate themselves to hours, days, years, even decades to working on a project that calls to them. Take Edison for example, a man who believed in his vision of electricity that is accessible to his fellow man. He believed in his vision to such a high degree, that 10,000 unsuccessful attempts at making a working model did not phase him. Successful men and woman are much like diamonds; through great amounts of pressure and friction, the result are something average is transformed into something remarkable.
In the climbing world, working on our "projects" or routes we are trying to climb with no falls, can be quite a journey. When starting a climbing project, climbers will first figure out what is called the route's or problem's "beta". Beta is a word used by climbers which effectively translates to "this is what I did to climb it"; it is explaining your step-by-step process of how to successfully climb the project with no "takes" or falls. Unless you are currently climbing at a pro level and have been climbing since you were very young, it will generally take most climbers many attempts to "send" or climb full route/problem with no falls, their project. But what really allows for a persons character to shine through is their willingness to continue and endure all the "failed attempts" in pursuing their project.
For climbers, our time climbing is about 80% of falling, and even more when a climber is projecting. It is just a given when you project, you are pushing your limits of what you can do, thus the chances that you will need more than one attempt for a send are pretty good. Like Edison, anyone who wants to be a "one of the Greats", will more often than not have a different definition for failure. While the average mind will see failure as a "bad" thing, determined minds do not have time to waste feeling bad or down about their project; the show must go on. While I may fall from my project, I may break a bone or sprang and ankle, I may fall and have my skin get scraped off on the way down, but what did I learn? Did I make it to the top? No, and that is really unimportant to be honest. All the "what if I made it" and other hypothetical situations we create for things doesn't really matter. What matters is what we learned from our last attempt, and having the will to continue on and finish our project. Learning from what didn't work is a huge factor in finding out what does work, because the more attempts we take and can learn from, the greater comprehension we will have in order to complete our projects.
Now that we have redefined failure to mean an opportunity to overcome, what does it matter if we learn something or not? Sometimes what we learn can seem very insignificant when focusing on the bigger picture. Don't fret about how big the lesson learned is, focus on the progress you have made. In climbing one of my projects, I needed to take my right hand which was on a small crimp and throw up to a slopey hold about 5 feet up. Crimps are very small skinny holds that you can really only get your fingertips on, and slope holds are just like they sound, they are flat or round rock formations that slope down. Well I had done this move 6 or 7 times already that day, and on one attempt my hand slipped from the hold and grated my knuckles on the rock on the way down. These were my results for the day:
So what did I learn? The first thought might be, "I learned that this sucks and I want to do something else." That's understandable when disappointment creeps in, but again, what did I learn? The lesson for that day was simply clean the holds off before you slip off. That may sound sarcastic because of how minor of a detail that is, but that little detail, regardless how small, is progress. Progress is the driving force, the shimmer of light for all people who are committed to finishing a project through. Having the ability to take what the common person labels as failure and finding the lesson and making progress from that point will take you anywhere you want to go. Make note, its almost all in the mindset. Always keep faith and believe in yourself that you can do it, no matter what. To someone who is adamant about the completion of their project, the climber sending his project, the musician finishing a composition, or a scientist finishing an equation; it is all in the persons mentality of keeping faith in themselves and to keep pushing and creating progress to complete their projects.
For those with the drive to push themselves and their abilities, there is no stopping. Thomas Edison had a few inventions before he was able to establish the wide use of electricity and his light bulb and he didn't stop there, he still had more to give, and did till his end. He believed in himself and he believed in his vision. The first picture I shared in this post is a V-4 boulder problem that took me about 6 months to climb successfully, after climbing 3 to 5 days a week for about 2 years. I still have yet to this day got a send on my V-6 project, which is the second picture with my knuckles torn open. But each time I go back out to work on it, I still am able to find some little ray of progress. I know that I can successfully climb that problem, and one day I will. That "knowing" all stems from my will to keep pushing and my positive outlook on working on the project. We all have the ability to be "one of the Greats" in life, but it is only those with the determination to keep pushing, learning and progressing, that will one day achieve greatness.