Projects and their preparations (ft. Tom Bolger)

Project...
I firmly believe that choosing your project carefully is the most important part, there are thousands of paths but there may be only a few that inspire you enough to dedicate yourself to improving your physical and mental performance.
Here I have my personal criteria and of course they are different for everyone, some like short routes or steep routes, slabs or crack lines, thin vertical climbing or crazy roofs on pockets........
What I mean here is that you should not only choose a project based on the rating in the guide, give yourself the experience of arriving at the cliff and without looking at the guide, first look for the lines that inspire you the most, those that make you want to climb them.
Once you find the line that inspires you, the rest is easy hehe.
I would like to divide the preparation into two parts, physical preparation and mental preparation.
First physically analyze the route, make a route map by drawing the sequences and take notes on the crucial movements.
These notes will be very useful for remembering routes if you can't return to the project for a while or for being able to build replicas on the climbing wall.
I work on the number of moves on the route, the type of holds it involves, whether it's crimps, pinches or slopers.
This way you can develop a specific training plan for the project, adapt with replicas of the crux sequences and focus on the weaknesses that are holding you back.
The mental part is really interesting for the project, ultimately the project is about pushing ourselves to the limit, learning and progressing, but it also leads us to failure.
Being comfortable with the idea that the more you fail, the closer you get to success is, I think, essential to mentally preparing yourself to attempt a path that is at your absolute limit.
On projects we spend most of our time falling, working on movements, etc.
I think that to be successful on long-term projects, you have to enjoy the process, be comfortable with failure and be open to learning and improving, be aware of why you fail, and have the ability to understand what you need to dedicate time to improve on the project.

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