How do I decide climbs I want to do?

At this point, I've only experienced outdoor climbing for half of one season in 2023-2024, and I'm currently in my first full season 2024-2025. I haven't quite figured out what kind of climbs I like or what my “style” is. For some people, they seem to have a very good understanding. For example, one of my friends particularly enjoys big dynamic moves where you have to cut feet, and another particularly likes crimpy delicate face climbs on a vertical wall or a slightly overhanging wall. For me, I don't prefer either yet. I'm still trying to find out what I like and what I want to go out of my way to do. This makes finding climbs easy and hard at the same. It's easy because I put a ton of climbs on my “to-do” list, but it's hard because I end up disliking some of them. With that being said, here is my current criteria for picking out climbs I want to do when I go to a crag:

1. The climb flows well - This is often the case for a lot of the V3's and under that I pick out for myself. They look comfortable and flowy. Moves don't look forced, but there are still technical aspects to the climbs.
2. The climb has one or two cool looking moves - Self explanatory. If there is a crazy drop knee, a gnarly bicep intensive under-cling, or some other move that I think is cool, I try the climb.
3. The rock itself looks interesting / unique to me - This throws out the above 2 points. It could be the worst flowing climb with absolutely no interesting moves, but if I personally think the rock itself looks interesting, I choose to climb it for video. This has only happened once so far, so i's most likely not going to happen often.

Now, here's what I avoid:

1. Climbs with no top out - Personally, it's not for me. I like the feeling of topping out a boulder and standing on top as if I had conquered something.
2. Traverses - I've done traverses. I just personally don't find any joy in going sideways for 90% of the climb (even if it's a “classic” boulder problem).

Why do I climb?

I often ask myself why I climb. Is it for fun? Is it for social reasons? Is it for exercise?

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why I climb. I know that it's really enjoyable, I love the people that I'm surrounded by, and I think it's fairly decent exercise.

I can't say for certain that it's one main reason because if it was just for fun, I wouldn't try nearly as hard and feel bad about my off days. If it was just for the social aspect, I'd just hang out with the friends that I've made through climbing outside of the climbing gym. If it was for exercise, I'd much prefer powerlifting and jiu-jitsu. Perhaps it's just a mixture of things, but my mind keeps wandering to the “fun” aspect, so I'll dive into that in this section.

To be quite honest, I'm not sure I know how to do anything for “fun.” I just wasn't raised that way, and it has stuck with me. Ever since I was an 8 year old kid getting into competitive swimming and travel soccer, my dad has made it a major point that if I was going to do something, I'd do it to the best of my abilities. This meant constantly trying to improve and watching others who were better than me to learn. An extreme example of this is when I was 11 years old. It was a Sunday evening soccer game, and I was feeling tired before the game. I strapped up my cleats and played even though I was exhausted. Needless to say, my performance on the field wasn't great. My dad watched the entire game, and I could tell he was angry at my effort and abilities on the field. The drive home was silent and long. As soon as I got home, he sat me down and let out his anger and disappointment. The general gist of the conversation was that if I wasn't going to try, then he wouldn't let me play soccer. To hammer it home, he told me I wasn't allowed to go outside to play with the neighborhood kids after school anymore until the next soccer game. If my performance didn't improve, then I wouldn't be able to go downstairs in the house where the TV and game consoles were. I was essentially fighting to keep something that I liked every game. After this conversation, I tried my absolute hardest every training session and improved the most I had ever improved. I had off days here and there, but my general performance greatly improved. The funny thing is as I got better, I started to enjoy the sport more. By age 13, I wasn't trying to perform to keep doing things I liked outside of the sport, but I was trying to perform because it was fun to be good at a sport and win.

Some might say that this is bad parenting and that this is extreme, but looking back, I grow more thankful for this experience every day. I've approached a lot of my exercise related hobbies with the same mindset. I try to be diligent in training and try hard to perform when I want something, in this case maybe a certain climb. With the effort that I put in, I have a lot of days I feel weak and worthless because I am having an off day. In fact, there are long periods where I feel / have felt this way. The one thing that allows me to show up to the climbing gym the next day is the idea that the same feeling I had when I was 13 where the sport became more enjoyable is right around the corner. One can make the argument that I'll never reach this state of nirvana since there will always be climbs that I can't do (I don't expect to be climbing V17 by the end of my climbing journey), but the same could be said for soccer. There was always someone better than me, faster than me, and stronger than me, but at a certain threshold of skill level, I felt free and enjoyed everything the sport had to offer. My guess is that I'm in the midst of the giant skill hump in my climbing journey, and soon, I will reach that same state.

Yes, I agree that perhaps this lesson could have been taught in some other way, but the old man meant well and knew it would benefit me throughout life.

Who knows, maybe one day I'll do it because it's just 100% fun to climb alongside some of my closest friends.