In reply to Mick Ward:
> "I'm not good enough".
> This is the one that comes back to haunt me - again, and again and again.... But then, on the last go, magically/mysteriously/unbelievably, you pull through....
All good points Mick, although I wasn't talking about a psychological barrier but about an actual barrier where the route is unambiguously definitely and clearly too hard for me! (E.g. Vector, in my case - just beyond my technical skills, and so I never got up it on 2 tries).
You're right though, the psychology of it all is so important!