Let me tell you something I used to believe.
I used to believe that once you set a goal, you stick to it. That changing your mind was a sign of weakness. That if you said you wanted something—a career, a relationship, a climbing grade—you had to want it forever, or else you were just someone who could not commit.
I used to believe that opinions hardened like concrete. That the older you got, the more you were supposed to know what you wanted. That doubt was the enemy.
Then I bought a hangboard.
What Is a Hangboard?
For the unfamiliar: a hang board is a simple block of hardwood—maple, beech, or sometimes bamboo—mounted to a wall. It has shallow edges of different depths (measured in millimeters) and often small pockets for one, two, three, or four fingers. Climbers use it to build finger strength. You grab an edge, lift your feet off the ground, and hold on. That is it.
No machines. No shortcuts. Just you, gravity, and a piece of wood.
When I first bought my hanging board, I had very clear ideas about who I was. I was a serious climber. I trained four days a week. I projected V6 and dreamed of V8. I was not someone who backed down.
The climbing hangboard was supposed to be my next logical step. Another tool. Another discipline. Another box to check on the path to becoming "better."
The First Session
My first real climbing hang board session was humiliating. I had watched all the videos. I knew the protocols: 7 seconds on, 3 seconds off, repeat six times, rest, do it again. Simple.
I grabbed the 20mm edge, lifted my feet, and counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. By six, my forearms were screaming. By seven, my shoulders had climbed up to my ears. I dropped off at eight seconds, gasping.
This was not supposed to happen. I was strong. I climbed outside. I had calluses and crushed chalk and a gear closet that proved my commitment. But the rock climbing hangboard did not care about my identity. It only cared about what my fingers could actually do.
Spoiler: not much.
The Slow Unraveling
Over the next few months, something strange happened. I kept hangboarding, but my feelings about it kept shifting.
Some weeks, I loved it. I loved the quiet, the focus, the feeling of my body learning to hold on longer. I loved walking past the board and knowing that I had shown up, even on days when I did not want to.
Other weeks, I hated it. I hated the boredom. I hated that my fingers ached and my elbows hurt and that no matter how many sessions I did, I still could not hang the 14mm edge. I started to wonder: Why am I doing this?
At first, I thought these doubts were failures. I thought a real climber would never question the hangboard. A real climber would just suffer and improve and never complain.
But then I started talking to other climbers. People much stronger than me. And one by one, they admitted the same thing. They had all gone through phases of loving the hangboard, hating it, ignoring it for months, then coming back. They had all changed their minds about it—sometimes many times.
No one called this weakness. They called it training.
Ideas Change, And That Is Okay
That conversation changed something in me. Not just about hangboarding, but about everything.
We grow up thinking that having a clear, fixed idea is a virtue. We admire people who "always knew" what they wanted. We treat changed minds as flip-flopping, indecision, lack of character.
But life is not a multiple-choice test. There is no answer sheet. There is just you, moving through time, collecting experiences that reshape you without asking for permission.
The person who started hangboarding at 25 is not the same person who walks past that board at 35. The 25-year-old wanted stronger fingers and a higher grade. The 35-year-old might want quiet mornings and healthy elbows. Neither is wrong. They are just different people, shaped by different seasons.
The hangboard does not judge either version. It just hangs there, wooden and patient, waiting for whoever shows up.
What I Believe Now
I no longer believe that changing my mind is a failure. I believe it is a sign that I am still alive, still paying attention, still being shaped by what I have lived through.
Some months, I hangboard religiously. Three sessions a week, timers set, edges measured. Other months, I do not touch it at all. I climb outside, or I do yoga, or I just rest. I do not apologize for either version.
The hangboard taught me that consistency does not mean sameness. You can stay committed to something without staying identical to who you were when you started. You can put down a tool for a season and pick it back up later. That is not quitting. That is listening.
And listening—to your body, to your mind, to the quiet voice that says what you wanted five years ago might not be what you want today—is not a weakness. It is the whole point of growing older.
The Only Rule
Here is the only rule I have left: do not trap your past self in a promise your present self has outgrown.
You are allowed to change. You are allowed to put the hangboard away. You are allowed to sell it, give it away, or keep it on the wall as a reminder of who you used to be. You are also allowed to come back to it ten years later, with softer fingers and a quieter heart, and start again from zero.
None of these choices are wrong. They are just different. And different is not a downgrade. It is just the shape of a life that keeps moving.
So if you have a hangboard—or a dream, or a plan, or an identity that no longer fits—look at it gently. Thank it for what it taught you. Then decide, right now, what you actually want. Not what you should want. Not what you wanted five years ago. What you want today.
That is not indecision. That is honesty.
And honesty, unlike a fixed plan, never goes out of style.
Now go hang. Or do not. Either way, trust that you are becoming exactly who you need to be—one changed mind at a time.