choosing priorities

As we learn from the past and look ahead to the future, I like to think about an old analogy you may have heard. It's called the "Jar of Life". Now you know I'm of course going to make this analogy climbing related.

We'll call this the "Jar of Climbing" and in my next few emails, we are going to expand on this analogy.

As you may have gathered, the jar here represents your climbing. Really, the entirety of your climbing experience and performance.

Naturally, we want to fill this jar! When your climbing jar is full, you

• feel aligned with your climbing

• are satisfied with your performance

• everything feels like it's "just working"

Now there are a few ways you can go about filling your jar, but the BEST way to do it is to start off with the "big stuff". In this analogy, the big stuff are... well, rocks 🪨😁 

These rocks represent your priorities. These are necessary items that fill the jar on their own. If these were the only things in your jar, you'd be plenty happy.

These items can be purpose or the "why" behind your climbing such as:

• "I really enjoy trying moves at my limit, so I need to have at least one project bouldering session each week."

• "I climb because I love socializing and connecting with people. Therefore, a priority of mine is to make sure I go to the gym at a similar time to my friends."

Or these items can be more specific performance supporters such as:

• "All of my projects are very crimpy, so I know I need to include hangboarding in my training to increase finger strength and reduce injury risk."

• "I tend to get scared when I'm lead climbing, so having a consistent and reliable climbing partner/belayer that I trust is really important to me."

So this week, I want you to think about your own rocks/priorities.

Try to come up with two to three. What do you absolutely need to keep your climbing jar full?