"Do. Or do not. There is no try." - Yoda
I’ll be the first to admit, when I first heard Yoda say that in Star Wars, the quote didn’t make sense. Trying is part of achieving, isn’t it? Actually, it’s not, as I came to find out.
Trying isn’t in and of itself a bad thing, but it does give you permission to give up and quit. “Oh well, at least I tried” along with the shrug of the shoulders... so common... and I do believe people really mean that they gave their best. However, “trying” gives you permission to quit, even before you start. And there’s the problem.
Trying = self-doubt. Of course you’re not going to be successful in every attempt. Of course there will be skills and knowledge you lack at the beginning. Of course! But mentally tell yourself that you will DO, not try. “I will walk up to that handsome man and start a conversation.” NOT “I will try to walk up to that handsome man and I will try to start a conversation.” Do you sense the difference?
Many people will quit just before they achieve their goal, almost as if they’ve pre-programmed themselves to be okay with it.
And they have! If you look at a goal and think, “I’ll try,” you predispose yourself to being okay with quitting.
But what if you said to yourself before you start, “I’ll do one thing at a time and take one step at a time, until I achieve this. It will be fun!”
What a difference! It might seem subtle but it’s huge!
You can only do one thing at a time anyway, you can only take a step or two at once, but if you commit to just taking the next step, and then when you accomplish that step commit to nothing but taking the step after that... you are not TRYING anymore, you are DOING.
Trying also puts a lot of pressure on you to “try hard” and in trying hard, it’s easy to choke under the pressure!
Here are four great mental tricks to get you to not try anymore:
1. (as above) FEEL big... dream big... but focus small and take action only on what you can see directly in front of you: “I’ll do one thing at a time and take one step at a time, until I achieve this. It will be fun!”
2. Think of the fun you will have in the process and let go of the result. Athletes can do this to prevent race-day agitation: just go out there, do the best you can and HAVE FUN. It’s almost inevitably the athlete who is too pressured to perform excellently, who is so uptight and tense that he or she will not be able to give their best performance, while the less-pressured underdog goes out there with a joyful spirit and nails the performance for the gold.
3. Play with “What if it DOES work? What if, in spite of all the logic and evidence, it actually works? Wouldn’t that be fun?” Pretend! Mentally rehearse success, but also mentally rehearse the awesomely fun, playful process that will lead to the success you envision.
4. Tell yourself, “Just do it!” So what if you don’t get the results you anticipated. As Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you didn’t take.” And did “The Great One” TRY to score a goal? No. He just took the shot. He just DID.
Think about the times you tried too hard to impress someone you liked... or to give the winning performance... or to hurry the process because you didn’t feel you had enough control... what were your results? Did they meet your expectations? I’m guessing, probably not.
So next time, remember: “Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.”
To a simpler more fulfilling life,
Steven Johnson
Founder
Brainwave Research Institute