Chapter VIII from Marti Soosaar’s e-book *A New Beginning*
As the mind is, so is the tongue. As the tongue is, so is the mind.
You’ve probably noticed that when you’ve promised something to someone—regardless of whether it might have been insignificant to the other person or not—the very act of saying it out loud immediately creates a certain moral pressure for us. Above all, we don’t want to break our own promises, and we like it when our friends think of us as people who keep our word.
Do you see where I’m going with this? If you promise something to a lot of people, you’re much more likely to follow through on it. Of course, shouting things out loud like that isn’t very comfortable. There are several fears associated with it.
What if I fail? Who knows—it depends a lot on what you promised, of course. Erki Nool once loudly declared that he wanted to become an Olympic champion. The critics—of whom there are many around us—got to mock him, saying, “Look at that big-mouthed kid.” They kept mocking him until Erki Nool actually became an Olympic champion. Then they moved on to their next target.
Of course, there are other examples as well. The Estonian national cross-country skiing team’s press conference, held at the start of every season, is a favorite event for the naysayers. It’s a shame that in the World Cup series, the top-ten finishes and points that our skiers say they’re aiming for don’t count toward the standings. At the end of the season, we’ll end up with nothing but 70th–80th-place finishes and have to admit once again that the promises were empty. The cynics will be able to sneer: “As always, the Estonians dive into the international competition circuit with high hopes and return from it with a wealth of experience.”
The lesson you should take from this is to phrase your promises in a way that makes them achievable. Your friends won’t make fun of you if you promised to lose 20 kg but only lost 15 kg. Of course, if you promised to lose 20 kg but actually gained 2 kg instead, that might be a different story. But that won’t happen if you’ve thought things through properly!
Of course, these clearly defined goals should be measurable. This follows from the very definition of a goal; otherwise, they aren’t clear. On New Year’s Eve, while knocking back shots of vodka with friends and chewing on a piece of pork between your teeth, it’s easy to say, “In the new year, I’m going to start working out properly.” That’s exactly the kind of extremely vague resolution. If, on September 12, you end up walking to work one day because your dad borrowed your car to take a few things to the countryside, you might think you’ve fulfilled your resolution.
I’ll lose 20 kg. I’ll start going to running practice three times a week. I’ll start keeping a workout journal. These are much more specific resolutions. Make your resolutions measurable.
Be realistic when making a promise—that’s the next piece of valuable advice that people tend to ignore. What I mean is, don’t promise to “climb to the summit of Mount Everest this year” during a sauna night while you’re over 1.5 per mille drunk, when you’ve already had plenty of beer and still have more to go, without having put even the slightest bit of thought into it beforehand.
I have a very good friend who used to be a high-level athlete and is now a dedicated sports fan and supporter. He sometimes tends to blurt out promises like this during sauna nights after some mass-participation sports events: “Next year I’ll be at the starting line myself; I’m going to start working out and lose 20 kg.” Of course, none of that ever happens, and the following year, the same story repeats itself after the same race. In fact, I have several friends like that, and you probably do, too. Hopefully, now that he’s reading this, things will change for him, and he’ll start thinking through these promises more carefully.
A promise made in such a lighthearted mood often lacks substance, because it hasn’t been properly thought through or committed to memory. There are some very important questions that remain unanswered: When will I work out? What kind of workout? How will I go about losing weight? Who’s going to make a plan for me? None of these things have been thought through—it’s just the emotion of wanting to be young and athletic again and run through the hurdles in three strides.
The moral of this story isn’t that we shouldn’t have fun with friends or reminisce about our shared memories from the track. Of course, nothing bad will happen to anyone if you spout these words at a sauna party. Everyone enjoys having fun, and such dreams are, of course, great topics of conversation. It’s just that—if we want these promises to actually amount to something, we need to think them through more carefully and revisit them at a calmer moment, evaluate them critically, and, if necessary, adjust them to reflect reality. That is, of course, if we even remember what we promised in the first place.
Let’s return to a thought articulated by Kaire Leibak in the pages of this book. She goes to the gym as soon as she gets home from work. She has defined for herself not only a goal but also the specific time when she works out. Whether you schedule your workout in your calendar or set a specific time, it’s absolutely essential. It shows that you’ve thought things through. “I’m going for a run as soon as I get home from work” is very specific.
Time and place are important. If you don’t set a specific time and place for your workout, it’s unlikely that it will ever happen. Keep this in mind when making these commitments and planning.
If one of your main goals for getting active is to lose weight, you can’t really schedule that into your calendar. It’s the kind of process that has to happen consistently. However, it’s still possible to make plans and outline specific actions. “I’ll stop eating chocolate” is a specific promise. “I’ll join the Fitlap program and start planning my daily meals there” is another specific promise. “I’ll weigh myself every day” is a third.
This last point is a bit controversial, as various studies show that people who weigh themselves every day are likely to lose more weight than those who do so less frequently. However, there are also more people among them who “go crazy” and give up. Whether daily weighing is something that helps or hinders you depends on your mental strength and analytical skills.
René Laane, founder of the meal-planning app Fitlap, joined us at FitQ to speak on the “Energy Transfer” podcast, which you can listen to or watch on FitQ. He knows that a promise made out loud is a promise you have to keep. On the podcast, he promised that by the end of March 2021, he’ll be in the best shape of his life. Admittedly, this promise isn’t as specific as it could be—after all, as a former powerlifter, René could have set a specific goal for his bench press or deadlift. However, his experience in understanding his own body is remarkable, and he’s generally a total “no-BS guy,” so I have no doubt that he can assess his own progress more objectively than you and I combined.
I’ll try to be more specific and put my promise in writing, since I don’t fully trust my own objectivity otherwise. My specific promise is this: throughout the entire year of 2021, the first thing I’ll do when I sit down at my computer in the morning is complete one pack (50 words) every day in the Lingvist language-learning program.
For anyone who’s confused by this promise, Lingvist is a foreign language learning program centered on learning words through repetition and writing them down. Each lesson covers 50 words, and it takes me about 10 minutes to complete that set. Go check it out. It’s a great program made in Estonia. Then write down your specific promise and say it out loud somewhere.
Still not convinced that saying it out loud helps? You don’t really want to make any big promises to your friends, but you could still get a little bit of their energy and encouragement, right?
In that case, create a Strava account and invite all your Facebook friends who are on Strava to follow you. Now, whenever you go for a run or a bike ride and turn on Strava, your friends can “give you a thumbs-up.” Whether we admit it or not, it does warm your heart a little.
There are also plenty of alternatives to Strava, so you can Google them if, for some reason, you don’t like the color orange and think the user interface could use more blue, for example.
If you’re absolutely sure you don’t want to bother your friends with your stuff at all, there’s a little hack for that, too. I discovered this one for myself recently and use it to help me remember things better. Namely, say it out loud to yourself. No one has to be standing right next to you if you’re afraid people will look at you strangely.
It might actually be a bit strange if I were weighing cabbage at the store and someone behind me were to sigh out loud at the same time: “As soon as I get home, I’m going for a run.” If you say it to yourself somewhere quiet, you won’t bother anyone. I’ve used this tactic myself in a similar way: before going to the store, I tell myself that as soon as I leave the store, I’ll stop by the package locker and pick up my items from there. I’d started to find myself in situations all too often where I knew I had a package at the machine but simply forgot to go get it. With this tactic, at least I’m better at remembering things. Going to the gym among others.
If you don’t dare to make a promise out loud to others, make it to yourself.
This was Chapter 8 of Marti Soosaar’s e-book “A New Beginning.” We’ve also published the previous chapters; you can read them on our blog, but you can download the entire e-book HERE.
