The way through your project will not always be apparent.

We’ll call the movement, and things that you must do to get through this section, cryptic.

Maybe there is something that you are missing, something that you’re not seeing.

Maybe this section is targeting a weakness of yours and finally bringing it to light.

Maybe it’s a particular movement or skill that doesn’t come up very often, and isn’t in your repertoire.

It is certainly the case that you need strength, skill, and technique to climb hard. Those things can be trained, just like you can train for work, advancing your knowledge and skills. You can go to school and learn new tools and tricks to help your understanding.

But nothing prepares any of us for the most difficult problems and projects that we face in life.

Why?

Because these sorts of moves, and the skills required, rarely (or never) come up. There is no way to train for it. You have no history with this sort of thing, so it is like starting anew.

This is where creativity comes into play. When you are stumped by the cryptic movement, it will come down to your ability to connect and use the resources that you have available. In our case, what holds are there? What are your strengths? What can you do to offset your weaknesses?

Last season, I completed one of the most cryptic routes I have ever done, aptly named Enigma.

I spent roughly four weeks trying to work out the moves on a 12-foot section of the route. I figured out the lower part of the crux fairly quickly, but it was the section after, “the Enigma move,” that proved the most challenging. I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do. I would hang there and stare at the wall, perplexed, trying to find something that I was missing, some secret that would unlock the mystery of the route. Over the course of a month I slowly I developed beta that worked for me.

What does cryptic beta have to do with you and the problems you face?

We all spend time looking for the secret that will unlock the mysteries of a route or a problem in our lives, but (I’m sorry to disappoint you) there is no hidden key.

My best solutions to difficult problems are developed over time. It is the process of dogging itself — trial and error, incremental progress — that allows me to succeed, not a single cracked code that gives me huge gains in a single bound. It’s about the process of beating the moves into submission.

When I finally send my most difficult projects, it’s simply the result of me showing up every week.

To get through your cryptic sequence, you have to try. Try a lot. Keep trying! Keep showing up, love the process, do the work, and eventually you’ll find your way through these cryptic sections and achieve mastery.