Decision points are places where you stop, rest, and assess. We can identify three kinds of decision points: macro, mini, and micro. The sole macro decision point is at the base of a route. Next, on a route, there are mini decision points where you have a stance with protection. Third, there are micro decision points where you don’t have protection. These are places with subtle stances allowing you to stop and quickly assess.

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The purpose of a decision point is to make a clear and appropriate choice to which you will fully commit, rather than just climbing on with your head full of uncertainty. You’ll need to prepare by collecting information (END, DAO, and POLR), weigh the risk, and decide whether or not to commit.

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Each decision point transitions you from preparation, through a decision, to taking action. You have micro decisions, within mini decisions, within a macro decision; cycles of preparation, decision, and action within larger cycles of preparation, decision, and action. Risks are always constructed this way—cycles within cycles. How effectively you make the macro decision will determine how effectively you make the mini and micro decisions.

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Larger strategic issues—such as, “Why am I on this climb?”—cannot be decided quickly at a micro decision point. You’ll simply justify your momentary feelings rather than act effectively to execute a well-considered plan. Motivation must be decided when you have more time and less stress. At the mini points, you assess and decide the more specific, tactical parts of the risk, like the next END, the DAO you now face, and the POLR for the next section. At the micro points, you consider the tactical parts at a more microscopic level. Recall from the Preparation eLesson that climbing is a combination of stopping and moving. By understanding cycles, you separate the skills of stopping on a route from those of moving, and you begin doing each more deliberately. You rest more fully when you stop; you climb more deliberately when you move.

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How you use the intelligences of your mind also changes as you get deeper into the risk. The length of time you have to assess decreases as you move deeper, from macro to micro. At the same time, the amount of stress you experience increases. In order to make appropriate choices at micro decision points, where time is minimal and stress is maximal, you need to build a solid foundation at the macro and mini decision points.

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Standing on the ground, at your macro point, you can think to gather information. Your feeling of whether or not the risk is appropriate will not be accurate. You’re still too far inside your comfort zone. You are also too far away from the immediacy of the risk to determine the exact fall consequences and the level of pump you will feel. Therefore, at the macro point, you utilize more of your analytical intelligence, thinking through the risk. You thoroughly address strategic issues, like your motivation.

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At mini points you have diminished time and increased stress. You are intimately closer to the next section and can see the risk you face more clearly and feel the pump more precisely. Tactically, you can think to identify the END, the DAO, and the POLR for the next section you face. Decreased time and increased stress also move you closer to the edge of your comfort zone, which allows you to feel whether or not the risk is appropriate. At mini points you utilize your analytical and intuitive intelligences equally.

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At micro points, time has decreased to the moment and stress has peaked. Less available time requires you to think less to gather information. More stress requires you to feel more and make quicker decisions. You stop at micro points to quickly figure out if the risk has changed.

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If you’re in a yes-fall zone, you decide what to do to continue climbing, not whether or not it’s an appropriate risk. You can feel how pumped you are and how you will use your remaining strength to climb what is ahead of you.

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If you are in a no-fall zone, then you can feel how pumped you are and determine if you have enough strength to continue without falling. If you feel you do not have enough strength, then you will retreat. At micro points you utilize more of your intuitive intelligence to feel what is most appropriate.

I like to view climbing challenges as risks. Some of these are risks in the commonly understood sense: there is a chance of serious bodily injury. Other climbing risks involve little or no physical danger, but may be intimidating or frightening for any number of reasons. You risk a thrilling but safe air fall. You risk the feeling of “failure” or embarrassment in front of onlookers. You risk “blowing your redpoint.” You risk putting yourself in a situation where you need to hold on uncomfortably hard for uncomfortably long, etc. Psychologically speaking, these risks are as real as the risk of physical injury.

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In the Warrior’s Way® method, taking a risk involves three phases: preparation, transition, and action. In preparation, you gather objective information about a risk. Once you’ve done this, you move into transition and make a decision about whether or not a risk is appropriate. If the risk is appropriate, you move into action.

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Here we are concerned only with preparation and the best frame of mind for that task. For proper preparation, you need to break out of your tendency to rush or stall and do active, focused thinking. Active thinking uses intention. Intention is attention focused in the direction of a choice. When you are at a rest stance, your choice is to focus your thinking processes on gathering information in preparation for the next challenge.

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“Information” means objective information. If you begin thinking about how difficult the climbing will be, then you’re being subjective. “Difficult” basically means “stressful,” a signal that your mind is straying off task and beginning its comfort-seeking tricks. This kind of thinking is not intentional. It is habitual, based on how you have dealt with stress in the past. Instead of actively thinking, you are allowing your mind to run its habitual stress-avoidance thoughts through your mental space.

Your mind is where thinking occurs. But there is a part of you that is aware of the thinking. The essence of who you are and where you need to operate from, is that part. It is awareness. Awareness is the field or space where thinking can take place.

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You can focus awareness on what you intend to do. This is attention: the intentional directing of awareness. Attention is really all you can control. The physical characteristics of the route, and even internal processes within you, are out of your control. Even thinking is out of your control. All you can really do is direct attention to manipulate your thinking. For instance, you can focus attention on obstacles and difficulties, and defeat your effort before you even begin. Or, you can focus attention on possibilities, and helpful “possibility thoughts” are generated. This is how biofeedback works for other bodily processes. By focusing attention on slowing your heart rate, for example, it slows down.

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If you don’t operate from awareness, you get lost in thinking. You will think about skirting stressful situations and seeking comfort. Your mind’s comfort-seeking tendency will direct how your attention is utilized. Instead of letting your mind have its way, you need your attention to direct your mind’s thinking processes.

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Beliefs, values, and prejudices are all wrapped up in how you think. These concepts are dear to you and make you feel secure. To consider that they are “not you” is threatening.

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But fear lies within those thinking processes. This fear is not a logical, intelligent caution in the face of danger, but rather simple fear of the unknown. To break free from this fear you need to see thinking as something you do, not something you are, or even something you completely control. All you can control is how you focus attention. Fear is about what might happen, not what is happening. And “what might happen” originates not from the situation, but from your thinking mind. When you operate from awareness instead of your thinking mind, there is no space for fear.

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Understanding the difference between thinking and awareness is the foundational step to increasing mental fitness. Your essence is awareness, and if you operate from that essence you feel a power that the mind’s thinking processes can never attain.

Difference Between Thinking and Awareness

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