I'm a big fan of TED: Ideas worth spreading and I am subscribed to TED RSS feed. I love how inspiring and insightful some of the speakers are, and could happily sit and watch one video after another for hours. An interesting, albeit short, video popped up this afternoon with Derek Sivers talking about how telling everybody your ambitions can actually make you less likely to achieve them. This turned out to be pretty relevant to me right now as I was in the process of composing a post about my goals for the next 6 weeks before I get married.
It's funny how simple realisations like this can slip through the cracks of your subconscious without being recognised and stored for later use. But when they are brought to your attention, you can immediately recall examples in your life where you've applied the principles and got the results. For me, one example really sticks out. For this we go all the way back to 1995.
I had been trying out for the ACT Under 16 Australian Football team that was to compete in the Australian Championships in Perth. This was a big deal for me, as I'm sure it must have been for the rest of the boys, so I was hell-bent on making the side. Although I never thought I was a walk up start, I was playing some good football in the local league and thought I stood some sort of chance.
I was destroyed when I received a letter informing me I wasn't successful; that I wasn't good enough. I remember crying. Lots. I couldn't believe they didn't think I was in the best 22-25 kids in the state. I was even more devastated to find out the next day, through a friend that had made it, that they had filled the last couple of spots with under 15 kids that hadn't even been training for the side. This made me pissed off, and morphed my sadness into anger.
So I set myself a goal quietly to shove it up the selector's asses. I set out to win the Under 16 league (the league from which most of the side was chosen) Best & Fairest award, kind of like the Brownlow Medal for juniors. I wanted to be able to bump into one or all of the selectors at season's end, look them in the eye, and have them know they'd made a mistake, that I should have been in that side – and that I had the medal around my neck to prove it. I wanted apologies. I wanted deep regret. I wanted them on their knees, wrapped around my ankles begging for forgiveness. So, I pinned the rejection letter to the cork board in my bedroom and highlighted the section that said I wasn't good enough. I read it over and over again, and I trained and played my guts out for the rest of the year.
At the end of the season I was invited to the ACTAFL Junior League Best & Fairest Awards. And I won it. And then I went on to win it the following year too.
I didn't announce my goal to the rest of the world, not even to my Mum. I think if I had have I would have let myself fall into a false sense of achievement, as mentioned in the video above, that I'd already in some way done what I wanted to do. That somehow just having the goal was in itself an achievement. But since then, I don't know how many times I've announced I'm going to do something and not followed through, simply for the fact that in announcing your goals your mind somehow tricks you into thinking it is already done.
So stop talking about what you're going to do; people are much more interested in, and inspired by, what you've already done.
