You complete projects and problems at your limit by getting on them. A lot. Beat it into submission, as we say. You have to work through the movement, break down the sequence, and then piece it all together.

On average I get on a route that I am projecting 2-3 times a day, 2 times a week, for 2 months. I have probably been on a route 30 to 50 times before I complete it. Somewhere in the middle of that process, I start giving it redpoint attempts, and probably fall at the crux 20 to 30 times.

I fall my way up my projects.

Completing projects requires rehearsal — getting on it and keeping on it. If you are able to maintain a positive attitude and keep up your hard work through the long dark times when it doesn’t feel like you are making any progress, know this: the send is inevitable.

I have a deep belief in this wisdom, which is the result of experiencing it many times. I’ve gone from working projects that were so hard that I couldn’t string two moves together during my first session, to crushing the route two months later.

It’s a slow and steady approach. It starts with one move at a time, and slowly inching up the wall.

When I warm up on other people’s projects (not something I like to do on purpose these days) they’ll ask, “Did you just warm up on that?”

I respond, “Yeah…but I’ve been on it a few times.” (More like a few hundred times.)

But those warm-ups were my projects at one point in time. That is the entire point of beating it into submission, to have it down so well that you can eventually warm up on it.

That is what you must do — take your project and not only send it, but beat it down to something you can warm up on.

You’re probably going to fight me on this and try to find another way around your problem. You will be convinced that there is a shortcut, another way through that doesn’t involve as much work or effort. But there isn’t. And one day your desire to send a hard project will finally force you to develop a routine and a discipline. And, finally, beat your projects into submission.