Dr Rebecca Williams, performance psychology coach and consultant clinical psychologist shares a chapter from her upcoming book Climb Smarter: Mental Skills and Techniques for Climbing.
Part and parcel of setting appropriate goals for yourself is having a really clear sense of where your strengths and weaknesses lie as a climber. There are plenty of tools out there which can help you to measure your current technical, tactical and technique skills, but few which outline the main psychological skills needed for climbing. This chapter is all about the key mental skills required for climbing, and how to measure and analyse your starting point and ongoing progress.