Nobody cares. Train harder.
Anyone in the functional fitness or weightlifting space has heard that phrase more times than they could count. I actually like it quite a bit. Enough so that I bought a shirt with that phrase right on the front.
When I read the description of it on the website which sells a popular variation. The premise of the message is that nobody wants to hear you complain, they just want you to show up and put in the work, especially on the days that you don’t feel like doing anything. Don’t be lazy. Don’t be a whiner. Just work. And that makes sense in a lot of ways. When I was first working on eating correctly and getting into shape, I was just trying to make it to the next day off. Motivation was really an issue, primarily because you couldn’t convince me that waking up early and punishing my body would make me feel better throughout the day. I didn’t get it. And on days when I just didn’t feel all that great, it was too easy to skip it and worry about it later.
But for me, this carries a slightly different meaning.
Perhaps oversimplifying these categories, I feel that most of the people I talk to fall pretty close to one or the others. First, some love to hear about your success, but only as long as it stays under their own. Meaning, your PRs are awesome until they start to exceed what others are capable of. Then they are almost resented. Second, there is the “oh, cool” response, where your success is at least acknowledged, but then shrugged off like you are talking about something mundane. Then there are those that really just don’t care at all because their primary interest is what they are doing. You might share some success with them and while they briefly acknowledge it, they quickly move on to what they are doing which then proceeds to dominate the rest of the conversation.
Really what it boils down to is that nobody will ever care as much about your passions and pursuits as you do. As long as you keep that in mind when talking to people about chasing your goals, you should be fine. It used to bother me when I would try and share something that I was extremely proud of, only to have it brushed off, or ignored in favor of a game or social app on a phone.
Nobody cares.
You know, there is a hell of a lot of truth in that.
So what is left to do? I believe it is in our nature to want to share these types of things with others and seek validation and support. That is what drives a lot of social media, is it not? So it becomes rather defeating when you feel as if there is no outlet or sounding board that gives a crap about what you care about. Knowing all of that, I have made it a point lately to not even share anything about how training is going, or how a meet went, unless directly asked. I don’t even want to talk about being sore, or if I think something is injured. I will keep the answers brief until I can tell that the person asking might actually want more than just a surface answer to their question.
Last week I got a text from a friend that asked me how I was doing. But it went further. They asked how I was doing mentally and physically. It caught me so off guard that I wasn’t even sure how to reply. It was asked with a certain authenticity that I haven’t been used to. Normally I get “how are things going?” and nothing really beyond that. For someone to take the time to seriously ask me a question like that deserved a legitimate answer.
Train harder.