All of us heard about how attitude may influence our chances of success at some purpose or another.
But what is exactly an attitude?
It is a set of emotions, beliefs and behaviors toward a particular object, person, thing or event. They often carry some degree of aversion or attraction. For instance, your attitude determines if you have preference for a climbing spot or a partner, or if you are against the idea of climbing in a particular spot or with someone you regard as a not so good belayer.
Attitude is learned. It is a learned tendency to evaluate things. And has a powerful influence in your behavior or your performance in any area, like climbing among others. It’s a construction in your mind, but is manifested in the conscious experience in many ways.
How attitude is formed?
I said it is learned. Let me elaborate a bit more how and when is learned in climbing.
-By experience:
Through your personal experience, such a failure in a specific kind of rock may make you create some aversion to climb other walls with similar climbing rocks. Or by observing others, like when you watch someone (and you regard this person as a good climber) falling in a route.
-By social factors:
Based on social roles and social norms. How you are expected to behave or what it is considered appropriate. If you are a person that people always consider as weak, when they notice you are climbing, they may make some discouraging comments (that you may tend to ignore but still can influence your attitude). This is when the attitude of other people influences your attitude. If some climbers around you find a boulder problem extra difficult for a certain level, they may condition your attitude before trying it, giving you a bad attitude, which may decrease your chances. The social “norm” is telling you are not ready to face this challenge because they weren’t. But, who knows, you are a different person with a different set of skills. But a negative attitude will make you tend to the norm.
The learning process of an attitude
Attitude conditions our behavior, and it is usually learned by conditioning. Here are two examples of how it works from a psychologic perspective.
-Classical conditioning:
by association of two stimuli resulting in a learned response. Like the reason you like climbing. It might be the good feeling of being in nature or surrounded by friends, or the success feeling when you figure out a boulder problem in the gym. But it results in the association of climbing as a good thing for you. In the other side when you fail to grab a certain grip and fall, you may develop a bad attitude regarding this kind of grip, even when you find something similar in another route.
-Operant conditioning:
by reward or punishment of a certain behavior. When you grab a grip which not belong to the route you are trying and other climber let you know this is wrong. When someone say well done to you after a good climb. When your likes are increasing in your climbing pic. Simple and effective as when we were kids.
Why attitude matters
At this point you probably realized how it interacts with the way you approach your projects or how you deal with some aspects of your life. Having a positive or negative attitude toward something makes a difference in your reality. Having a negative attitude regarding a particular route may make it more difficult for you. You will find yourself full of fear of falling, so more likely to fail. On the other hand, if we have a good attitude regarding the route, even if it is difficult, it is going to be easier for you to find the way through it.