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It feels incredible to dream about your future success and all the cool things you’re definitely going to accomplish, and feels even better to tell everyone you know about how you’re going to do it. We've all done it. You've got this cool idea, you can see a path forward, you even watched a really inspiring YouTube video about how someone else did it, so you know it's possible. So naturally, you tell anyone who will listen. You might even get some praise, some words of encouragement, and a few pats on the back for being so inspiring and ambitious, and it feels like you’re priming the world for your success by putting it out there. You could get some valuable feedback or guidance, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, that's not why you're telling everyone. You're doing it for the dopamine hit. You're borrowing from your future success to give yourself a little taste now, and boy does it feel good.
We want the praise in advance before we accomplish anything, but just having goals shouldn't earn you any praise at all! Everyone has goals, everyone has a dream, and millions of people have sat around going on and on about all their big dreams. Countless circles of stoned teenagers have passed a bong around, regaling each other with stories of their big plans, that business they're going to start, the screenplay they're going to write, the trip around the world they're going to plan when they find the time. Everyone says "Duuuuuude, that's sweet," and never speaks of your brilliant plan ever again because you didn't actually do it. Ideas are cool, but they aren't actions and actions alone move us forward.
It's no better than a New Years resolution. You proclaim that you'll be a different person on January 1st than you were on December 31st, and it's definitely going to change everything for you, but you fail to acknowledge that you were unwilling to do it on December 14 so you are unlikely to stick with it until February. It feels good though! You haven't done it, but you're planning it and you can't wait to tell everyone all about it. They smile and they nod and they tell you that your goals are noble, but at a certain point you have to ask yourself if your real goal isn't just that lukewarm enthusiasm you're receiving. Do you even want to start that business, or are you in it for the praise? Talking the talk is easy, but walking the walk is a completely different beast.
Consider the opposite scenario: your friends and family wonder why you’ve been so busy lately, and one day you show up with a finished work that absolutely blows their minds! That landscape you’ve been painting, the book that you’ve written, the business you’ve started, the language you learned to speak. They're shocked, and most of all, they're genuinely impressed! "You didn't even tell us?" they'll ask, astounded that you've been an artist or author all along and they didn't even know it. You'll be a badass, and you won't even have to tell everyone that you're a badass. Tell people you're something special and they'll debate it - show people and the debate is over. You're a doer, not a talker.
The most successful people on Earth rarely talk about their accomplishments because they don't have to. They walk the walk, and the results do the talking for them. The greatest authors don't update their fans weekly on social media about how this weekend they plan on completing the 2nd draft of the 4th chapter of their upcoming masterpiece. They just do the work and then drop the damn masterpiece! They top the bestsellers list and sell a million copies like it's just another day the the office. Bragging about it beforehand does nothing at all to enhance the experience.
We all have a finite amount of time and energy, and we often compensate for a lack of action with an abundance of talk about our future actions. Sitting down and doing the thing is hard and feels thankless. You put in the time, grinding away all alone, thinking and working and perfecting your craft, but if you can delay the gratification of bragging about your progress you'll find that you'll get that gratification 10x stronger when you finish the job and present it to the world. Be one of those people who walks the walk and doesn't need to talk about it. Present your work for the world to see and don't diminish your success by boasting about it in advance. If you can set your ego aside for now you'll get more high-fives than you can handle when you surprise the people in your life with the thing that you actually accomplished. You're not a talker. You're a doer.
J. Thomas Peterman
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