A couple years ago, I was talking to my dad on the phone and asked about his plans for the next weekend. He said Saturday he was going to go golfing, but he had to wait to pick up my mom and her friend Ann because they were going to try to bicycle 100 miles.
And then he said, 鈥淲hoops, shit, I probably wasn鈥檛 supposed to tell you that. I think she wanted to keep it a secret.鈥�
The next Saturday evening, my mom texted me a photo of her bike computer: 109 miles. When I called her the next day, I asked her why she hadn鈥檛 told me about her plan to ride a century for the first time in her life at age 65. She said, 鈥淲ell, I didn鈥檛 want to jinx it. I wasn鈥檛 sure we鈥檇 make it.鈥�
This is not about my mom and Ann being badasses and for no reason just deciding to try something huge like pedaling a hybrid bike in the July humidity in Iowa for an entire day, although that is arguably pretty neat. It鈥檚 about planning to do big things, and not telling anyone until you鈥檝e finished the big thing. (It also may be a story about my dad not being able to keep secrets that well.)
I don鈥檛 know if I get this from my mom or if she gets it from me, but I鈥檓 also a secret goal-planner. If I鈥檓 trying to do something big, like writing a book or climbing a mountain, I don鈥檛 say anything until it鈥檚 finished. Yes, you should positively affirm to yourself your intentions and definitely think 鈥淚 can do this鈥� instead of 鈥渕aybe I can do this.鈥� But if you, for example, intend to climb Mount Rainier for the first time ever, lots of things can happen up there before you get to the summit. Unexpected weather, for one, can make it impossible, even if you have done 100 percent of everything in your power to prepare beforehand. You can get horrible blisters, or a stomach virus the day before your climb. Hopefully none of these things happen to you, but let鈥檚 be honest: Until you have both feet on the summit of a mountain, you have not climbed that mountain鈥攜ou are attempting to climb the mountain.聽
A couple of psychology studies have shown that telling your goals to people makes you less likely to achieve them (some takes on that , , and ), and others have argued against that idea (), saying we鈥檙e going to fail at 99 percent of our goals, whether we tell anyone or not.
Sure, privately telling someone close to you about your Big Idea can help you be held accountable to it, especially if they鈥檙e a good friend who won鈥檛 let you off the hook that easily. But that鈥檚 different than telling all your Twitter or Instagram followers about it because you鈥檙e excited about your idea鈥攕ocial media posts are pretty ephemeral, and most of us have too much noise in our lives to hold anyone we 鈥渇ollow鈥� accountable to anything. When鈥檚 the last time you commented, 鈥淗ey @bobxyz, didn鈥檛 you tweet one time last year that you were going to write a book this year?鈥� We have a million ways to communicate nowadays, and talk is becoming cheaper and cheaper.
One of my all-time favorite quotes is from artist Chuck Close, who spent hours and hours (but only a half-teaspoon of black paint) creating his nine-foot by seven-foot, mind-blowingly photorealistic 聽in 1967. Close said: 鈥淚nspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.鈥� He was talking about the process of making art, but I think that quote also captures how fleeting inspiration is鈥攚ith big ideas, inspiration can only power you through a very small percentage of the work required to get something done. Drive is what gets you to the finish line, the final edit, or the summit.聽
For me, it all comes down to one thing: The joy is in actually doing the thing, not saying you鈥檙e going to do it.聽