What Weightlifting Has Taught Me About Systems Engineering
Tags: systemdesign, systems, weightlifitng, self
Published: 2023-10-28 19:10:00

It’s hard to imagine Olympic weightlifting and engineering have much in common. But sometimes, it's the unlikeliest of connections that offer the most valuable insights. Beneath the surface, there is a profoundly human connection—a shared journey of growth and challenges.
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## Progressive Overload

In weightlifting you will never get stronger unless you embrace discomfort. This is not unlike an engineer who feels stuck but refuses to feel ignorant at anything. Progressive Overload is a training style that steadily increases resistance intensity. The process is designed to stress a physiological system capable of growth, for lifters this is muscle and the mental capacity necessary to move them.

Consider engineering design as an interconnected muscular system. If you're not regularly pushing the limits of your understanding, you’re leaving progress on the table. You and your applications will stay stagnant in the methods you resist changing for fear of the unfamiliar. The pressure on your current infrastructure will increase over time, components will buckle under the steady trend up of transactional load. Just like the deterioration of muscle mass with age, you can only slow or even reverse this with action. Get uncomfortable and be bold in your planning; that's the point!
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## Honesty

You either make the lift or you don't; you can shortcut and put in half effort in your training, but you will get half back, I guarantee that. A sobering component in Olympic weightlifting, especially in the first year, is that progress is almost entirely made by refining technique. There is no alternative or supplement you can take to avoid putting in the full breadth of hours.

Be honest with yourself and your team about gaps in your system, always. Understand requirements early to identify non-negotiables, allowing engineering time to focus on what can be delivered well and not fall into the paralysis of saying yes to everything.
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## Consistency

Trust the process and show up! Olympic weightlifting may be a borderline masochistic sport, the very nature of its training demands failure after failure after failure… Every time I fail a lift, I'm just learning another way not to do it. Put this into your philosophy: mistakes are human, mistakes are you getting better, learn to love showing up.

I have seen how huge shifts play out in an engineering organization, twice bought out and once reborn. The people, processes, and product are evolving at a rate that demands system operations team agility at least twice as fast to stay ahead. This is a call to be consistent at what you are best at; effect your changes you know how to make in your day and within your team and rest in this consistency.
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## Weightlifting is a Team Sport

Accept critical coaching and learn from others who have been where you are today and have seen it through. They see your struggles from a perspective you cannot. My coach sees improvement when I simply just don't, this is like looking down a mountain once you've reached the top and seeing other hikers just starting their ascent, their view blocked by trees only a few yards ahead. If we apply recognizing this difference in perspective to the engineering teams we lead we can do a bit of time traveling together; experience gained is irreplaceable, and when shared, it multiplies within the team. Value each engineer for their insight and critique by keeping communication open and honest.

Even though competition totals are credited to individual lifters, it's just not that simple. Behind the number is a journey shared among peers and coaches being retold by one. Be the first to support and recognize other engineers around you, they will do the same for you.
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## Final Thoughts

As humans, our life patterns are rhythmic, we have passions and personalities that find their way into everything we do. We all follow the very human pattern for growth: try, fail, try again. My hope for you is that you succeed in your goals, whether that is stepping out on the weightlifting platform or riding the engineering "eureka" for all of your days. But nothing happens overnight. Learn to love the journey of being a novice, lean on more experienced engineers around you to keep you on track, and assume honesty with yourself above everything else.