The Trouble of “Will” Versus “May”

It is common for professionals in most fields to speak with a degree of certainty, and this is only natural.  After all, who knows better about a subject than those who have dedicated years of study and/or professional practice to it?  It makes sense that if anyone has the answers, it would be the “experts” (more on the potential issues of that word in a future post).

However, the fitness/training field appears to suffer from an overabundance of confidence.  There is a fundamental disconnect between how much people think they know, and how much they actually know.  This may be a product of the low barrier to entry in an unregulated industry, as many training facilities simply want to get a piece of paper so they can say that their trainers, coaches, etc. are certified.  The public doesn’t tend to dig too much deeper than that, so employers don’t have much incentive to do so either.

“Got your cert?  Well come on board, then!  You studied for a whole few months before taking that exam, so you’re definitely qualified to have people put their health and safety in your hands!”

Note that there is a big difference between certification and qualification.  While they may overlap, the relationship between the two isn’t particularly strong.  (This parallels the ongoing discussion of how people who have a degree in something aren't automatically always right, but that topic requires a bit more unpacking than I can do right now).

So where am I going with this?

Well when we become too certain, we close ourselves off to the possibility that we could have missed something.  We need to remain open to learning and improving, and that means forming a deep, intimate relationship with our own fallibility.  In practice, this often looks like a suggestion instead of a firm statement.

Don't get me wrong; certainty isn't automatically a bad thing, and you're not necessarily wrong when you make an absolute or unambiguous claim!  For the purposes of this discussion, it's a fact that gravity pulls things "down."  It's a fact that adaptations occur as a response to certain physiologic stresses.  It's a fact that a cause cannot occur *after* the effect (barring any wayward tachyons which might decide to enter the room five minutes ago).

He read all of those books, so you know he's legit ;)

Rather, I'm just saying that it often helps us -- particularly when making statements about what ultimately will occur as a result of a real-world intervention with diet or exercise -- when we soften our tone and recognize that we are not absolutely sure of a given outcome.  Not with the immensely complex human system, at least.  So instead of saying that something will happen, perhaps we should say that it may happen.  While this might seem like hedging our statements as a means of never having to be wrong, I contend that this is just a more intellectually honest means of talking about things in our field.

This is what I mean by "Will" Versus "May."

Take note of the exercise guru who claims to have the solution to your physical problem, no matter what it is.  Notice the strength coach who tries to play physical therapist despite having no clinical education, or the weight loss "expert" who has a supplement and "guaranteed" strategy to make you look sexy in six weeks.  These people aren't empowered by their knowledge; they're blinded by their ignorance and trapped by their inability to see just how much they don't know.

There are very few guarantees in this discipline.  There are some major guiding principles, a few underlying facts (e.g. of physics, biology, logic), and some general trends.  Most of your best work will be done by remembering those things and by always being open to learning more -- to being a little less wrong.

So remember: it's okay to say that you don't know or that you aren't 100% sure.  It doesn't diminish you.  If anything, it does the opposite.  It'll at least reduce your chances of becoming another guru, and we should all agree that that's a step in the right direction for the industry.

- G

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