Insidious Everyday Terms in Sports: Thought-Terminating Clichés

Amanda Montell wrote the fantastic book, Cultish. In it, she introduced me to “thought-terminating clichés.” I love this idea, and they are what they sound like, tropes that stop critical thinking. Since reading her work, I’ve seen these clichés everywhere, and they’re insidious.

“Don’t ask questions, just do the work. Be coachable.”

“You just have bad knees.”

“That’ll surely transfer to competition; it looks just like the sport.”

“The Truth will set you free.”

“I just have tight hamstrings.”

“Keep showing up, keep working hard, you’ll get there eventually.”

Sometimes these “semantic stop signs,” as Montell calls them, are videos of Tom Brady, or some other outlier. “See, the GOAT does it, so you should too!” While that does seem logical, and we should note what the best do, it’s also survivorship bias, and usually confirmation bias, and a slew of other biases, and none of them validate what you should or should not do.

Shall I continue? I shall because these things are paralyzing and everywhere.

“Some people just have pain.”

“Don’t listen to the ‘peer-review pretenders.’ Science is misinformation.”

“Things just take time.”

“I slept wrong.”

“That [noncontact] injury was just bad luck; nothing you could do about that.”

“You just need to work harder.”

“Everything happens for a reason,” is often said after injuries. It’s a form of optimism and something I’d encourage as long as you look for that reason! I’m flabbergasted by the number of people who rationalize preventable injuries this way but never look for the cause.

Curiosity as a Lifesaver

When you hear these phrases or something that stops your train of thought in its tracks, ask questions. Push-start that choo-choo with curiosity. Otherwise, you may be stranded in whatever predicament you find yourself in.

Here are some examples of curiosity as a lifesaver: 

In the case of a coach telling an athlete, “Be coachable.”

A curious and brave athlete might say, “Please, coach, what exactly do I need to do? I’m still on the bench and dying to play and you’ve said a few times I need to be more coachable, but I’m confused. What does that mean? I do everything you say.” 

“I just have bad knees? But they used to be great, and some days are better than others. Something within this [hands gesturing from head to toe] makes my knees better and worse.”

“I slept wrong? Did I throw a violent tantrum in my sleep? How does one sleep right? Is there a class, and did I miss it? Am I supposed to stay in the same position all night? Or what am I not doing in my days that results in a rickety wake-up?”

“So some people ‘just have pain’? Who are those people? How do you know I’m one of them? When did you get your degree in pain science? If you’re sentencing me to a life of pain, you must tell me my crime: Why does my pain persist?”

“Oh, I need to work harder? Please, tell me where and how. I’m already working my ass off. Any harder will likely send me into over-training syndrome, burnout, or early retirement, or cause an injury. So, please, enlighten me.”

See how easily these clichés break down with inquiry? (Okay, and a little bit of attitude.)

I have one more.

Science is not misinformation. Sure, it has its problems, but nothing and no one is perfect. 

Good research is a) hard b) imperfect, and c) an amazing tool to discover the results of other people’s experiments so we can be increasingly effective with our choices and waste less time and energy.

The words you say and hear carry more weight than you realize. Said enough times, dangerous phrases become insidious clichés, gain traction, and change beliefs, decisions, and lives.  

We’re mindful of the foods we put in our bodies yet often disregard the ideas we let into our minds. Good food, good body. Good ideas, good mind. The filter? Awareness and discernment, especially of the words you speak and hear. 

Become aware of the tropes you come across. Social media is rife with opportunities to practice. Each time you do, ask a simple question and deconstruct the cliché. Or, ask yourself, “What do I lose by believing these words?” Or borrow the wisdom from toddlers and ask the age-old question, “Why?” 

Repeat it as often as they would too.