The first few years after I graduated high school and first started college, I competed in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting (sorry no pics right now). I did reasonably well and found a coach to work with me in preparing for meets and national level championships. One day, my comrades and I were training about 5 weeks ahead of an important meet - it was a particularly long and difficult training session. We were discussing various things between sets (girls, college classes, girls, etc.) when I loudly proclaimed to one of my training partners that I was going to lift 160 kilos at the upcoming meet.
Upon hearing this, my coach suddenly stopped what he was doing, creaked his neck around and gave me an odd look. He turned around and walked briskly over to where we were standing. Puzzled, I looked at my friend for any idea of what was going on, but he returned an equally puzzled look. Coach stopped in front of us and looked at us both intensely but didn’t say anything - it was one of those uncomfortable silent moments where you dare not speak first.
Finally, coach looked me in the eye and said:
“don’t ever talk about what you are going to do”
I blinked back an acknowledgment that I had heard him and he walked back to helping another lifter. For the rest of the day we trained in silence, methodically performing the rest of our exercises. I reflected on what my coach had said that night and on many different nights since then. Looking back on that day, I don’t think that my weightlifting coach was auditioning for a philosophy professorship, but the words: “don’t ever talk about what you are going to do” have had a sizable impact on me at various times.
You can interpret “don’t ever talk about what you are going to do” in several ways. Here is what I usually come up with:
- don’t jinx yourself (ha!)
- don’t trash talk
- don’t brag
- don’t reveal your intentions
- be “in the moment”
- talk is cheap
- actions mean everything
Perhaps I could mash all these things up and come up with something really profound…
What my coach said soft of flies in face about what I had been taught about goal setting, you know, where you are supposed to boldly tell everyone you know what your goals are. However, I think there is something more powerful in the works here.
You see, I think when we talk about what we are going to do, it’s a way of programming your mind. Words are very powerful and can indeed manifest themselves in your life. However, most people (virtually all) are not careful with the words they use and how and when they say things. In addition, most people don’t think through what they are going to say (even if it is a goal, they haven’t even thought through that) to make it adhesive at all in their own minds. Simply blurting out things, no matter how profound or substantive we think they are, usually just pollutes the air.
Here is the other aspect: actions are all that count. In the court of life, the only thing that matters is what you do. What you say may offend or make people happy temporarily, but your actions will be the lasting impression and feeling they have. In this light, I have added the old Nike commercial tag line as an ad-lib to my weightlifting coaches saying:
“don’t talk about what you are going to do - just do it”
