Why “just do it” is bullshit

http://wayoftheduck.com/why-just-do-it-is-bullshit

by dwynings • 14 years ago

98 74 14 years ago

This article seems to be all about the definition of "everything" in "everything is possible if you put your mind to it". For the author "everything" includes swimming faster than Michael Phelps even if you didn't start swimming at an age of 7. That's a tough one.

The saying is much more useful if you consider only the things that are possible given the current circumstances. I may not become as fast as Michael Phelps, but I can definitely become as fast as I can possibly be given my current situation. If you look at it that way, "Just do it" applies and it's a good motto to live by.

ngokevin• 14 years ago

Well put, the article takes 'everything' a bit literally. Why strive to swim better than Michael Phelps? Just swim to swim and get better (forget trying to be the best in the world and just simply do it).

piggity• 14 years ago

If you believe what you read, it takes ~10000 hours to master an activity.

Most people give up long before then.

So people almost never achieve their real potential which is really what Phelps and the blog are really about.

That Phelps used "some" hyperbole is not surprising - he didn't spend that 10000 hours honing his public speaking.

swah• 14 years ago

Related to this, I'm trying to be less technical/picky when talking to people.

I gain nothing when I interrupt someone to correct their bad phrasing, if I already understood what they mean't. I'm just being annoying and pushing people away.

samstokes• 14 years ago

While his complaint about "stating the problem as the solution" resonates with me, I found this post gained a lot more meaning when I noticed who the author was: Buster Benson, founder of a number of startups with the explicit goal of helping people make beneficial changes to their own behaviour. He's not just whining "this stuff is hard, give us a break" - he's calling for more attention on techniques for doing hard things.

This post from the same blog is one of the most positive and insightful "my startup is shutting down" posts I've read: http://wayoftheduck.com/a-duck-bears-no-grudges

> I’m not going to wait until I have a success story to start telling it.

nsmartt• 14 years ago

The point here is that natural advantages make you more capable for some things than others. You can't be blamed for not being able to achieve something that you shouldn't have realistically expected to achieve.

That said, some things are your fault. I still bite my nails at 19. Forcing myself to quit is possible, and I have only myself to blame if I don't. It's the same for weight-loss, so that's a horrible example.

madamepsychosis• 14 years ago

It's not really true, but I've always thought of it as a slogan to dispel irrational fear around trying something new. In that it has it's use.

steve8918• 14 years ago

Sorry, but this is the dumbest blog post I've read in a while. I'm not even sure why he even bothered posting this. Is it really to say "Hard work is never enough if you want to be the top person in the world at something"? Did he just recently come to the conclusion that he has been "lied" to in that hard work isn't enough some times, and that luck and natural advantage could somehow trump everything else?

Of course not everyone can become an Olympic athlete just by trying. And of course not everyone will be the next Steve Jobs or Zuckerberg no matter how hard they try, either. That's not the point.

The point is that most people don't even bother trying, and if you try, if you even just show up on a regular basis, you can probably reach above the 50th percentile in anything.

I would bet that almost anyone who puts a concerted effort into any endeavor could get to the top 25th percentile in just about anything. Hard work and hustle can bridge a lot of gap that natural ability and luck may create.

But if he is somehow just now coming to some epiphany that hard work can't trump luck and/or natural advantage (either thru ability or status), then my answer is: "Welcome to the real world." You need to temper any goals you have with maturity and realism. I'm a terrible basketball player, but I'm sure if I spent 1hr/day every day playing pickup for 1 year, by the end of a year, I'll be better than at least half of the regulars. But if my expectations are that I'll be able to dunk and beat Michael Jordan, I'd be delusional.

talbina• 14 years ago

Thank you. One the most inspirational comments on HN in a while.

olliesaunders3• 14 years ago

Can I ask you this: what purpose are you inferring the author had in writing this article?

drumdance2• 14 years ago

That he's annoyed by a platitude from an athlete in a puff-piece interview.

wicknicks• 14 years ago

Excellent reply. Couldn't agree more.

rlu• 14 years ago

Couldn't have said it better myself!

olliesaunders3• 14 years ago

You haven’t actually criticized any particular point of this article only stated how obvious it is and how other stuff is more important. OK, it may be obvious to you but this might be quite enlightening to other people especially those who have been fed on the kind of self-help bullshit the author is debunking. A lot of people are into that, sadly, and not smart enough--or perhaps too desperate--to understand why it is bullshit. If it’s so beyond you then just move on. If you want to enlighten us do it without making slurs against other people less fortunate than yourself.

signalsignal2• 14 years ago

I didn't see any slurs in what he wrote. Try to be more constructive.

einhverfr3• 14 years ago

First, I think the blog post is grasping at something important which is that we have this "just do it" mentality which has some obvious deficiencies. However I still agree with you. I think one has to start with reasonable limits and accept that no matter how good you are there will always at least sometimes be someone better than you. That's not a problem though. The difficulty is in forming a way of thinking about the world that allows us to become extraordinary.

One major deficiency in the blog post is that it emphasizes natural advantages too much. One major pitfall there is that emphasizing natural advantages over effort means that success becomes more like an innate trait rather than the product of a lot of effort at improvement. Natural advantages do exist, but improvement is the key still and this takes effort.

My view is very different, abstract, and metaphorical. I think that a person's attitude should be seen like an aviator's attitude (if you don't get the reference, see http://www.marvgolden.com/bad-attitude-t-shirt.html). It's not how you react. It's your direction and where you are headed. The "bad attitude" T-shirt is funny because the bad attitude is flying at a bad angle towards the ground.

Another way to look at it is to borrow the old person-as-chariot metaphor found both in Plato and the Mahabharata, and update it for the times: I am the charioteer. My body is the chariot. My emotions are the horses. My thoughts are the reins. But, I am the charioteer.

One can also borrow the person-as-tree metaphor found in Greek and Norse myth. Grow like a tree and be not afraid of shadows: become grounded in the darkness of the earth below and then reach up towards the light above.

The nice thing about these metaphors is that they can be repurposed as needed, but doing that right depends on "attitude."

goodcanadian• 14 years ago

I can't quite make out the picture in your link, but if it is the same shirt that I had years ago, the plane is upside-down, headed for the ground, and in a flat spin. As my uncle said, "it certainly is a bad attitude."

delinka• 14 years ago

"You can't win the lottery if you never buy a ticket." Doesn't mater how hard you work at predicting the winning numbers, if you didn't play those numbers, you don't win.

yen223• 14 years ago

>You need to temper any goals you have with maturity and realism. I'm a terrible basketball player, but I'm sure if I spent 1hr/day every day playing pickup for 1 year, by the end of a year, I'll be better than at least half of the regulars. But if my expectations are that I'll be able to dunk and beat Michael Jordan, I'd be delusional.

I believe that's the point of the article. If you do your hardest, but still fail to beat Michael Jordan in a dunking contest, it's not because you were too lazy. It's not because you didn't try hard enough. It sure as hell isn't because you didn't bother trying.

It's just that you simply weren't lucky enough to possess some of the natural advantages Michael Jordan had. And it's important not to lose sight of that fact.

bfrs• 14 years ago

In winner-takes-all games, being even in the top 99th percentile is worse than useless.

To use your own example, true you might get better than half the regulars in basketball if you spent 1 hr a day at it, but you'd make exactly $0 being in the top 50th percentile of basketball players. You would be far better off if you had spent that 1 hr/day for a year on improving your coding skills further.

postfuturist• 14 years ago

More inane babbling by svbtle bloggers. How is this hacker news worthy?

autodidakto• 14 years ago

First time I've seen a front page article blasted by 100% of the comments. Finally, complete agreement in the comment section! I'm wondering how it got to the front page too.

philwelch• 14 years ago

But it's an exclusive invite-only blog network!! /sarcasm

xiaoma3• 14 years ago

If you or I had started swimming at age 4 and had top coaching, There would be little hope against a genetic freak like Phelps. Also, the existence of him and many other slightly less extreme genetic freaks means that it would be a very, very poor idea to invest time in trying to become a great swimmer. Unlike them, we'd have no career prospects.

The author was right. It's much better to invest time and effort into a pursuit where you have an advantage. And it follows logically that if you don't have any natural advantages, then you should stay the heck away from winner-take-all professions.

natarius• 14 years ago

dumbest blog post I read in a while. sorry that you had a shitty day dude...but don't worry, there is better ones coming up :)

Xcelerate• 14 years ago

I've always thought that at a local level, you can become the best with enough hard work. Want to be the fastest runner, swimmer, or the student with the highest grades at your high school? Just work harder.

It gets more difficult when you reach world-class. That's where genetics come into play, because at that point it's hard to argue that anyone is really outworking anyone else.

BlackJack• 14 years ago

What a bunch of negative bullshit. What do you expect Michael Phelps to say? "Hey kids who look up to me, don't follow your dreams because you probably don't have the right set of genes. Just acknowledge it's difficult and move on."

People act like being "world class" is some big mystery, but not in the 21st century. Extensive research has come to the conclusion that deliberate practice, over a long period of time, with the appropriate guidance of coaches and mentors is necessary and mostly sufficient to produce expertise in a field.

No, I don't think anyone can be Michael Phelps. In fact, it is clear that physical advantages go a long way in sports and athletic events. In almost everything else though, the right approach can produce mastery. The Polgar family is a living example of that w.r.t. chess. And most people are not looking to become world champions - they simply want to be successful in their endeavors. For that to happen, you must apply the same principles. To lose weight, I agree that saying "just diet and work out" is difficult, but most effective programs are either a result of intrinsic motivation or someone implementing a gradual program where you first cut out some sugar, then all soda, then cake, then you start eating one good meal a day, and so on and so forth.

In my view, this post marginalizes human willpower, which I consider one of the strongest forces in the world. Sure you won't be Michael Phelps, but you could say "No matter how hard you try, you will never become a Redwood," and I think the result is the same. Most people don't aspire to be world champion swimmers or extremely tall trees. They want to be successful in their endeavors, and for reasonably well off people in the Western world (which I think describes a large part of this board), there really isn't anything holding you back.

Ericsson et al. published a review of this field (expertise) in The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbo...). It's 900 pages but if you can't make it through a serious book then you sure as hell can't succeed in anything that requires real dedication.

einhverfr3• 14 years ago

Also don't underestimate the importance of dreams in inspiring us. Inspiration can be seen as what makes perspiration possible. I have seen people who had significant physical disabilities become inspired and overcome those to a large extent within the domains of one activity or another. Inspiration can make us extraordinary, if we are willing to follow it and put in the effort.

xiaoma3• 14 years ago

An emotional reaction to this kind of realism is understandable considering how much people want to believe they can be be great at anything.

But the truth is that innate differences matter not just in athletics, but in any endeavor. Even the famous Polgar sisters you mention both trailed men who had later starts and less formal early training for their entire careers. UK marathoner Paula Radcliffe's career is similar in many respects.

In general, the "purer" an endeavor is the more decisive innate differences are. By this I mean that innate differences will matter more for runners than for basketball players, more for speed skaters than hockey players, more for mathematicians than for hedge fund quants, etc...

But there is a great deal of evidence that innate differences create uncrossable chasms in skills far outside of athletics.

Music: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1209186.stm

Motor Skills: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1209186.stm

IQ & Cortical Thickening: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/science/30brain.html?_r=1

Language: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050517063228.ht...

Facial recognition: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/01/face-recognition/

None of this means that willpower doesn't matter. Of course it does. However, at least accepting the reality that we don't all have the exact same potential at every pursuit can be beneficial. For one thing, it's signal not to heavily invest in a tournament-style career, such as modelling or concert violin playing, unless you have a clear aptitude. Even for more forgiving careers, where merely being competent is enough to make a good living, it's rational to choose a career that aligns with your natural talents. Why put X amount of effort to be in the 70th percentile of some field when the same amount of effort would make you 90th percentile in another comparably in-demand field? Most people are happier doing what they're good at.

NathanRice3• 14 years ago

I agree that world champion level aspirations are not realistic for everyone. This doesn't mean the people who do not have innate talent are leagues below world champions though. In my observations, talent causes an athlete to become proficient faster, and to end up being very slightly better than untalented people who work very hard. Of course, at the level of world champions, very slightly better is the difference between first place and middle of the pack.

DanielRibeiro• 14 years ago

Counter point from the VC Mark Suster, from 2009[1]:

What Makes an Entrepreneur? Four Letters: JFDI

[1] http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/19/what-makes-an-...

alexshye• 14 years ago

IMHO, this blog post only sees a narrow part of the picture, and gets it wrong.

To get anything done, we need to (1) have the desire, (2) turn this desire into action, and (3) continue the action and fight through barriers until we achieve what we want. "Just do it" works well as a mantra to turn the desire into action.

However, after this step, there is a whole lot more. How much natural ability do you have? How hard are you working? How much competition is there in the area? Are there political, legal, or other barriers in the way? There are many factors determining how far you will go. But, getting started is better than not getting started at all. This is an important step that is often not taken.

A more accurate way to put is is that "just do it" is necessary, but not sufficient.

I should say that I just wrote a blog post in the "just do it" camp so it may skew my views:

http://alexshye.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/the-most-important-...

dredmorbius2• 14 years ago

Wanking article.

I've known several (relatively) late-blooming competitive swimmers who didn't begin training until their teenage years, and a few other athletes who began later than that (20s, 30s, and beyond), reaching national or international class.

Gail Roper comes to mind. She was largely passed over for swimming in high school, but came to be one of the most dominant masters and open-water swimmers of all time. A few decades back I had the distinct pleasure of being beat by over 4 minutes by her, which I figured was fine given that she had a 40 year head start. http://www.girlscantwhat.com/meet-gail-roper-the-most-domina...

The "you can do anything" mentality is, of course, false on its face. Athletes, entrepreneurs, and artists, when confronted with a microphone shoved into their face, will say whatever damned fool thing pops into their head, sometimes honestly, often not. If you want to know the real secrets to their success, look at what they do, not what they say.

And yes, Phelps is a genetic freak pretty much uniquely suited to swimming.

He's also just another human being. And at the end of a race, his muscles and lungs are burning just like anyone else's would be.

That said, the accomplishment domain most of us are competing in is "doing stuff", surrounded by others trying to do the same thing. If you want to become accomplished at something, then a mix of innate ability, talent, and hard work will push you somewhere toward the envelope. Perhaps well inside, perhaps outside.

A huge part of success, beyond what you can't control (your genes, circumstances, starting at age 7) is to practice efficiency in how you go about reaching your goal. As many hours as a person puts into pursuing a given goal, there are far more hours spent not pursing it. In the tech world, most of us come to realize that beyond a few hours a day, if we're lucky, we're not terribly productive.

Athletes may spend a few hours a day engaged in training, but the real pay-off moments may be a few minutes of Tabata intervals, or a set or two of max-effort lifts. Everything else is preparation, support, preventive measures, recovery, or just plain goofing around. What's impressive is how little of the right effort is required to improve your ability. Perhaps not win you a gold medal, but at least to nudge you in that direction.

In another context I saw yet another question of the form "how much can I expect to progress if I do X?", and saw the usual responses, some backed with links to substantial research, of what typical and outstanding progress might be. One response came close to what I realized was the right answer: "and if you don't hit some goal rate of progress, are you going to quit?".

The answer is: you'll make more progress than if you don't do X.

So: pick a reasonable goal, within the realms of physics and biological attainability. Find out if it really suits you (are you doing this for you, for for someone else). Find effective means of attaining your goal. Apply those methods. Monitor your progress. You may find you are able to go further. You may find the goal is out of reach. You may find the goal doesn't interest you.

But you tried, and you learned something.

zobzu2• 14 years ago

To be honest, people wouldn't pursue or even try swimming if they weren't predisposed to. You implicitly know if you can progress to a certain level when you start.

YES some people have the capability and DO NOT try. Maybe the message works for them. But for the VAST majority that's not the case.

Following that logic we'd (almost) all be champions by now.

But then you go with "you may find the goal is out of reach". That's the freaking point of the article. Can't have it both ways.

dinkumthinkum4• 14 years ago

This sounds like special pleading. I'm not sure by what "spidey sense" people implicitly know this.

dredmorbius2• 14 years ago

I I also know a lot of pretty slow swimmers who nonetheless manage to do some pretty impressive feats.

With training, there's a response. You'll get faster, improve your endurance, power, strength, skill, whatever. This applies to programming, project management, swimming, gymnastics, painting, or chess.

Some people have the innate ability to go further. Some don't. All human ability falls along a spectrum, and most of us for any given activity are somewhere in the middle. Depending on the activity, the curve may be longer or shorter (you'll reach your ability after more or less training). Early adaptation is frequently fast, progress tapers off with time.

As I said above: with appropriate training, you'll be better than if you hadn't trained. How much better really depends. In most cases, though, you'll learn fairly quickly -- perhaps a few days, perhaps a few years -- how much talent you have. Developing that talent is then a matter of developing the skill. In some cases, skill/ability development can occur over many years, even decades. Pablo Morales and Dara Torres have shown that Olympic class swimmers can compete in their 30s and 40s, strength athletes may have similar careers. Some skill activities (conjuring, dance) even longer. Other skills peak early (few gymnasts compete past their teen years).

My point about the article was that there was a hell of a lot of defeatism and lack of rigor to arguments provided, on a topic that's blatantly obvious to start with.

I'll still bet most people could, if they tried, pursue a given goal further than a casual assessment would suggest.

So: no, "anything is possible" doesn't apply, but "some things are possible" does, and

jamesmcn3• 14 years ago

I don't find the world's best athletes inspiring, precisely because they often benefit from quirks of their physiology that I don't share or training that dates back to their single-digit years, or both.

I do find athletes in technical sports like sailing, rock climbing, extreme-depth diving inspiring because those sports require a combination of physical ability and problem solving. Sailing is particularly inspiring because even the least able sailor is able to leverage some of the most powerful forces on earth to their advantage. But even Dennis Conner can't sail directly into the wind.

Getting back to the original post, I do find it useful as an engineer to attempt impossible things from time to time. Often the impossible is just inside our heads. Sometimes our expectations for our self are too low. But sometimes our egos are too big and we benefit from failing at something impossible too.

There's some truth to Phelps' statement. But if you find yourself on an alien planet, don't take off your space suit and start petting the weird snake-creatures.

fluorescentLAMP• 14 years ago

>because those sports require a combination of physical ability and problem solving

I don't understand. Are you saying popular sports like soccer don't require problem solving?

jamesmcn3• 14 years ago

I can see how team sports are interesting, I'm just not that into them. They definitely require problem solving.

vacri• 14 years ago

What problems get solved during an extreme depth dive? How are they more complex than what other athletes face?

jamesmcn3• 14 years ago

I'm not a diver, but the overall logistics of how to get exactly the right amount of oxygen into your system is fairly interesting. Rebreather technology has been pushed and developed by the same people who use it.

tkiley• 14 years ago

Before my wife and I got married, we had a very intense year-long running argument about this exact topic. She told me I could do anything I wanted to do; I told her that was bullshit. I think this argument may have delayed our marriage significantly. :)

Since then, I've noticed that naively optimistic views are relatively common among people who accomplish interesting things. It's almost as if naive optimism is a semi-necessary precursor to remarkable achievement.

"You can do anything" is nonsense. It's a crutch. But many people use this crutch to get to really cool places, and I can't help but respect their accomplishments in the end.

einhverfr3• 14 years ago

"You can do anything passably" is not nonsense though. Anyone without a major disability can learn how to write working code. Anyone without a major disability can learn how to play the piano a bit. Anyone can learn how to make a knife, a sword, or a bow, or a pair of shoes.

You may never beat Phelps, but you can still learn to swim and have fun doing it. It might even save your life.

You may never be world class at most of these things regardless of what you put into it, but you can do it well enough to contribute to happiness in your life and in the end, that's really what matters.

diego• 14 years ago

I'm a lucky pessimist. I've done really well for my standards, and I'll be the first to admit that luck played a huge role. I don't think being naively optimistic is semi-necessary. It may help in not giving up when things are not going your way.

You can be a pessimist and still be persistent as hell. Sometimes you're pleasantly surprised, the rest of the time things just suck as expected :)

jessedhillon• 14 years ago

I posted an article earlier this week that got no traction, but discusses exactly this.

According to the article and the paper it references, people fall predominantly into two populations which are distingquished by their beliefs vis-a-vis achievement. The first population believes, inherently and without evidence, in the supremacy of accomplishing achievements. People in second population have as their primary motive the avoidance of failure.

The paper and the article go on to detail the set of post-hoc rationalizations which support these beliefs, and how these were discovered.

Article and paper: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/youre-hired/201110/how-d...

HN (non-)discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4307947

nandemo• 14 years ago

Thanks. That's much more interesting and informative than the post in question and the comments in this thread.

colomon• 14 years ago

Here's the thing. "You can do anything" is obviously bullshit if you take it too literally. It's trivial to spend your time thinking of loads of counterexamples, especially if you have that engineer knack of being painfully logical.

I think people mean it as shorthand for "You can do amazing things if you put your mind to it," and damn it, there's an awful lot of truth to that.

dinkumthinkum4• 14 years ago

I think that kind of thing is often mistaken for being "logical" when it is just pedantry and kind of a sign of not being a great problem solver. It's like when people give out problems like the Two Egg Problem and those people spend all the time going on about the properties of actual eggs rather than getting to the real mathematics. Part of the reason it is so silly is that it is like a case of a human behaving as a computer program with absolutely no AI (or robots from SciFi going "does not compute" and then blowing up).

drumdance2• 14 years ago

There is definitely something to being too dumb or optimistic to realize that what you're trying to do is much harder than you thought. Most entrepreneurs have encountered this.

dinkumthinkum4• 14 years ago

You let what amounts to basically childish pedantry make that big of a deal in your personal life? OK, I guess ...

I don't think a view that basically says "stop making excuses about your genetics and current station in life and work hard to achieve your goals" is naive optimism. First of all this kind of thing is not that easy to predict, how do you really know you can't do certain things, it's easy to retrodict. By all rights, the vast majority of successful people should have just given up and come to reality without even trying. Sure, if we all send our intellects back to fourth grade and make really literal interpretations like "you mean I can fly?" then it gets ridiculous, but then we would be ridiculous. :)

justin• 14 years ago

Loser's attitude. Yes, it might be impossible to be the best just by putting in hard work. But hard work and belief that you can accomplish is prerequisite to ever finding out if you can be the best.

ryguytilidie2• 14 years ago

Wow these responses are pretty shocking to me. To me this reads much more like the Steinbeck quote of “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

We end up talking about how amazing it is that these people have accomplished what they have but don't bother to consider that there are others who could not possibly have gotten that because they don't have the advantages the other person did.

I'm not super familiar with Phelp's backstory, but I assume he swam a fuckton when he was younger, his parents drove him around the country to events, etc. Many people don't have the time, money and resources to do these things. Telling a poor kid "just do what Michael Phelps did" while ignoring the vast, vast difference between their situations is completely ridiculous and kind of the way our society now works.

Not successful because you couldnt afford to go to school because you had to bring home money to help your parents pay the rent? Hearing "just work as hard as I did" from some white republican kid who got a trust fund is basically the same thing you guys are saying everyone should just overcome.

wonderzombie• 14 years ago

Yep. This is what I took away from it.

Let's be honest: the predominant socioeconomic class among hackers and entrepreneurs is a set who have a relatively large set of advantages, many of which are unexamined. This comment thread is a textbook reaction to an accusation that maybe, just maybe, some people have advantages which have directly or indirectly contributed to their success, perhaps as much as any other factor.

Some people call this "loser" talk, when I'd say, aggregated across not just our own extremely narrow cross-section of society, it's pretty realistic.

As he says, the corollary to "just do it" is that if you didn't succeed, it's because you weren't trying. That may not be what anyone here is suggesting (or it may!), but it's undeniable that there's an entire political party in the US which takes this as an article of faith. If you're wealthy, it's because you earned it; if it's poor, you're not working hard enough.

I do think there is something to the idea of XX% of success is just showing up. It's just that "showing up" elides plenty of complexity and it's not often I see people acknowledge that.

zzzeek• 14 years ago

"just do it" is the opposite of the "anything is possible if you put your mind to it" slogan. The "anything is possible" slogan implies that failure is always surmountable, which it obviously isn't.

"just do it" means specifically, "so what if you won't be an olympic star, won't lose 200 pounds or win a marathon, won't become a millionaire, even if your attempts fail and you totally suck at something, if you truly are interested in it and have a passion for it, don't discourage yourself, just do it anyway." Life is all about showing up and trying.

I played for years with a singer-songwriter who was just awful - tone deaf, fairly dorky, lame songs, guitar strings popping out, pretty bad. We were booed on stage more than once. After a couple of years I couldn't take it anymore and I quit that band. Years later I saw him play and he was totally great, had a fanbase and everything, and had done several tours in europe where he got really polished.

He kept at it for years, learned as much as he could from everyone he interacted with, and eventually learned enough to start playing first acceptably, then actually pretty well, within his niche, and today he makes his living full time as a musician. He was simply incapable of was taking to heart all the negative responses he got. They kind of just bounced off of him, and he persevered. When I saw him perform, one of his songs was called "Everything Sucks", and it was specifically about me and the really negative attitude I always had when we used to play together. Fans in the audience cheered for the song and they knew the words. It was sort of a teaching moment about negativity for me.

Anyway that's what "just do it" means. It means don't let negativity get in the way of what you feel like doing.

NathanRice3• 14 years ago

Thanks for the unique perspective Mike :) Next time I'm in NYC I definitely need to buy you a beer.

slimemold• 14 years ago

I don't have a prob with the post, but as someone trying to "just do it," this quote helps me: "The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark."

rapind• 14 years ago

I'm a fan of the Dan Plan. Pretty cool idea. You should check it out: http://thedanplan.com/

zobzu2• 14 years ago

Bullshit is beautiful. I like that :)

lancefisher• 14 years ago

Olympians are the best in the world by definition. Anymore, it takes a combination of talent, hard work, and opportunity to compete at that level. However, almost anyone who really tries can get fit. That takes perseverence, and it is possible.

bialecki• 14 years ago

Not to commercialize the conversation, but this Nike ad (pretty creative IMO) speaks well to this issue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsXRj89cWa0.

The problem with this post is it says nothing about what the alternative is. I guess it's implicit: give up. I'd rather believe I can do it, work like hell and then see where I come up short. But if others would rather sit on the couch explaining why they didn't try, that's cool too.

jakeonthemove• 14 years ago

Add to that the fact that disadvantages are just as real as the advantages and it's pretty much spot on.

danso• 14 years ago

The argument that Phelps's success is paritularly reliant on his genetic build is slightly begging the question. His physical features are considered to be ideal for a top swimmer because, well, a top swimmer happens to have them.

This does not automatically rule out the possibility that a swimmer with a shorter wingspan could break Phelps' record...because that person may have adapted to that deficiency by improving on a quality that was less important to someone of Phelps' wingspan...in the way that people with a missing limb or sense become stronger in the other ones.

This is all just to say that not-trying can't be predicated on "well, I don't share the same qualities as the current record holder"

dinkumthinkum4• 14 years ago

Was this written by a high schooler? I mean, if some freshman said this, most of us would just chock this up to being a smart aleck, sheltered kid with too much time on their hands and thus points the most banal things "You can't swim 100m butterfly in 1ns." Is that supposed to be edifying?

Obviously, when people say "anything is possible you just have to work at it" or things like that, they assume the audience is reasonable. They aren't saying a 100 year old in a nursing home is going to be able to play in the NHL competitively by just working hard. What kind of gibberish is this?

humbyvaldes• 14 years ago

Jeremy Lin... need I say more

BklynJay• 14 years ago

Well that blog post was a self-wallowing waste of time.

chubbard• 14 years ago

Dude it's just a pep talk we tell each other to focus us on executing over psyching ourselves out with over thinking, over strategizing, and noise of others telling us its stupid. Kinda like you're doing now. Apparently you'll need a new customized phrase to help you focus so here it is: Shut up and just do it.

djt• 14 years ago

I think there is a problem with the algorithm that is used for pages getting to the front page, to be honest. Pretty much every comment on here is about how vapid this post is, but how did it get to the front page???

NathanRice3• 14 years ago

Natural advantages are typically a fairly small boost. In most cases it is possible to modify the way you do things to take advantage of your anatomy and physiology. File this one under "know thyself".

Also, don't forget that there are enough people out there that someone with all the natural advantages is going to be working insanely hard. This is why having olympic aspirations is unrealistic; in a realm where a few tenths of a second is the difference between gold and going home empty handed, natural advantages matter.

Don't just work hard, think hard, explore all your options, understand what you are trying to do on a deeper level, then attack it as if your life or death depended on the outcome. Failure cannot be an option.

kkotak• 14 years ago

I think the points here are -

1. Phelps is at the top based on the system of measurement we've agreed upon. No need to worship him. 2. Use him to inspire yoursleves in the endeavours YOU want to undertake, and NOT to become Phelps. 3. Stop feeling bad about yourselves for not being Phelps. 4. Use happiness as your yardstick and not what others think about you. 5. Don't force yourself to immitate others, instead spend time on discovering what you love and allow/push yourself to excel in it. 6. If you do, you'll enjoy watching Phelps and move on with your life. 7. Replace Phelps above with Jobs/Jordan/James Bond...

Peace.

Why “just do it” is bullshit

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