“In climbing, you learn mostly through failure,” my instructor said with a grin, “but success is that much sweeter.”

I’d just fallen off the rock wall for the fifth time at an indoor climbing gym in Lander, Wyoming. The small ranching town in the Rocky Mountains is famous in this sport for its proximity to breathtaking, steep-walled canyons, towering boulders left by the glaciers that carved them, and the scores of talented athletes who come in droves to scale both.

I was there to interview wolf biologists for a news story about the endangered animals’ impact on cattle ranchers, and vice versa, but taking a climbing lesson from one of the local experts was also on my to-do list. I’m a New England native on a cross-country road trip in search of new professional, personal and physical challenges, and climbing is way outside my comfort zone.

The first time I tried this sport a decade ago I found its culture intimidating; there’s a lot of down time where athletes watch one another climb, and they know right away if you’re a beginner. Then there’s that “failure” thing, which just means you’re going to mess up, a lot, before you make it.

Notice any similarity between these daunting dynamics and the facts of life?

Back in college I thought they were enough to scare me away from rock walls for good. But over time I’ve learned not to be intimidated by what I don’t yet know or can’t yet do, and to define success relative to my goals instead of others’ expectations or social norms.

This time my goal was to enjoy the process and focus inward. So when I got to Lander, feeling older and wiser, I signed up for my re-introduction to climbing.

Too bad I’m not ten years stronger…

After twenty minutes my arms were shaking and my fingers were raw with budding blisters. I thought, how fitting that climbing routes are called “problems”!

I looked up the wall to the one pesky hold I couldn’t reach and studied the route like a chess board, trying to think a few moves ahead.

“In climbing,” the instructor chimed in again, “you decide whether you’ll succeed before you leave the ground.”

He’s right, I told myself as I put my hands and feet on the first holds and took a deep breath, you can do this.

Somehow I found just enough power in my shaking arms and legs to reach a little higher this time. As my body moved past the hold I’d missed so many times I wondered why it had seemed so hard to reach.

I accomplished a goal I set for myself, no matter that I fell again after three more moves, or that I will never be a champion rock climber…

I am finally starting to see my definition of success relative to my own goals, instead of focusing on what others see as my weaknesses. I can also see why my friends who climb see so many metaphors for life in their sport.

As I drove away from the gym I felt truly confident for the first time in a long time, armed with some sharpened tools for solving life’s problems.

SHANNON MULLEN is a freelance public radio reporter, amateur chef, aspiring screenwriter and a fantastic aunt. She's based in New England, where she spends a lot of her free time taking long walks/runs, hiking and otherwise exploring with her black lab Mila. Click here for more of Shannon's outdoor fitness adventures and visit her blog People, Places & Things »

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