The second principle of dogging, after going bolt to bolt, is learning to pull past (as in skip) tasks that you don’t know how to do.

This is not the same as ignoring it. Oh, no, you’ll get to know everything about it soon enough.

One reason I grab draws and pull past hard moves is so that I can remove the stress of the situation, which in my case is usually a 30-foot fall I’d prefer not to take. When you’re stressed, you’re no longer paying attention to those micro-details that make up your challenge. Removing the cause of unnecessary stress frees my mind to focus completely on the subtle details of the movement I am trying to work out.

Maybe your source of stress isn’t a fall, but something that it symbolizes–failure, injury, getting fired, being late. How much of your stress is true? And how much of it can you bypass by changing your circumstance or mindset?

Imagine that you could remove stress from your challenge. Imagine that you can remove consequences, that you are free to practice, to play and create, to explore and discover new possibilities while you do your work. What does that look like?

If you are lucky, perhaps there is a way that you can literally pull past the difficult moves, like I can in climbing, and remove the key stressor through a simple physical control, or maybe you can change your routine, or eliminate a technological distraction.

The first things you need to do is identify the stress–sometimes we are stressed without even realizing it, or understanding what is causing it. Once you’ve identified your stress, look for a way to remove it, or change the environment so that you don’t focus on it.

Are you afraid of public speaking, being on stage? So was Jim Morrison of The Doors. In his early shows, he used to sing on stage looking backwards. The crowd doesn’t exist if you don’t look at them. That’s not to say that you can give your presentations that way. Although…maybe…no! But I like the out-of-the-box thinking here.

If you can’t think of a physical change to your environment, you will have to spend your time changing where you focus your attention.

When I first started climbing, I remember all I could think about was how far off the ground I was, the fall, the rope, and the knot I had tied to my harness. All I could think about were all the ways I would die. Sure, I still worry about these things, and vigilance in safety matters keeps me alive, but I don’t let it consume me. Over time, I learned to focus on what I was doing in the moment. Everything else is a distraction. When I am tying in to the rope, that is what I am doing with all of my attention, so that when I am climbing I can just be climbing.

Spend some time this week thinking about what your sources of stress are. Is it deadlines? Unreasonable expectations for a project? Based on assumptions that are also guesstimates? Too much to do? So little time?

Stress narrows your vision and obscures your options. Find the source of unnecessary stress and eliminate it.