Please, stop trying. You are wasting your time. I mean, in reality, trying really is just ‘not doing’. Now, before you get all defensive here, stick with me for a minute..
Do me a favor and take the device you are reading this blog post on, and if you’re holding it, like your phone or tablet, try and put it down. Or, if it’s a computer to laptop, try and pick it up. Were you successful? Of course you were. You didn’t try to perform he action you did it. Now…go pick up your car. Most likely you can’t. There is no trying to pick up your car, there’s just not picking up your car. And if you had a really small car and you were super strong, you would just pick up the car. You see? You either do, or do not, there is no try. Yoda had it right.
WISDOM OF NIKE
There are lots of reasons to dislike sports apparel and retail outlet NIKE. And there’s no denying that when it comes to marketing they often get it right. With their primary slogan for the last 30 plus years ‘JUST DO IT’, NIKE has resonated with millions of athletes and couch potato alike. The reason? I’d argue one of them is because we are drawn to achievers, to the activators and the get ‘er done types who understand that when the things need to be done we gotta just get in there and do it. We admire the tenacity, the drive and the discipline exemplified by Michael Jordan, Serena Williams and every other unknown but amazing athlete out there achieving great things. What many of us fail to realize is that all of us are much more successful at getting things done and achieving than we give ourselves credit for. Why is that important?
CONFIDENCE IS KEY
Think for a minute about how you feel when you share an experience where you tried. Do you feel empowered or disempowered? Perhaps, depending on the situation and who you’re talking to you may feel either way. More often than not though, we use the word try to diffuse our failures. We say we tried something as a way to make ourselves feel better about ‘not doing’ the thing we were attempting. It isn’t empowering. Or, it isn’t as empowering as saying I DID IT. Maybe you do feel good about trying to learn French instead of not learning French. But wouldn’t it be more empowering to own the fact that you did learn some French? I would argue that it is. Doing something, even if you didn’t become the most fluent or successful at it, is definitely better than not doing it. And owning our successes is vital to our larger growth and success. Psychologist Albert Bandura's (famous for the Bobo Doll Experiment) famously presented this process for developing confidence::
Mastery Experiences | Vicarious Learning | Modeling Behavior | Social Persuasion
I believe that developing self confidence is an important part of our growth. In order to continue on a forward path it is important to see actual progress. And in order to see progress we have to start taking ownership of our wins and stop downplaying them. Gay Hendricks, in his book The Big Leap, address this type of Upper Limiting Behavior. We downplay our achievements because we aren’t comfortable being the center OF attention or owning our greatness. But you can change that story. We can choose to stop getting stuck in the compare and despair mentality that leads us to downplaying what we have done. Because you didn’t do it as well as someone else, or even as well as you would have liked doesn’t mean you didn’t complete the task. It doesn’t mean you simply tried, it means you did it. You have to see that as a thing you did.
Most of you who know me know that over the last two years I have taken my physical fitness more seriously. In that timeframe I’ve gone from not going to the gym at all to being in the gym 4-6 days a week, participating in 5 Spartan races and participating in more than one 5K, with more to come. When it comes to a Spartan Race you don’t try it, you do it. Now, to be honest, my time and performance is tracked and I am typically in the middle of the pack if not the bottom third. I am not a performance athlete and I am not winning any money or standing on the podium with the top finishers. But I am not trying, I am doing. And each time I do, I improve against the only competitor that matters - myself. With each race I am better than I was the race before. I don’t try to get better, I am getting better, and faster, and stronger. The process has been a case study in Alan Bandura’s process.
By continuing to have the experiences I am mastering them. Perhaps not all, but little by little I have mastered more and more. By surrounding myself with athletes I get to observe their technique, engage with them in conversation, build community and learn through their shared experience. I am modeling behavior for my children, and others are modeling behavior and discipline for me. And lastly, my participation and sharing of my success has persuaded others to participate. If you think that I haven’t gained confidence from this experience then you’d be sorely mistaken. And confidence is vital to facing other challenges. It has improved my self confidence in my business and in my other creative endeavors.
My Spartan experience is just one example of not trying anymore. And that reframing of my experience applies to almost everything. I want to try and understand CRM better. No, I am learning CRM. I want to try and sell my product to this person. No, I am sharing my product with this person. The results are out of your control, but the execution is completely up to you.
FAILURE ISN’T TRYING
One of the reasons we say we tried something is that it softens the blow of our failures, or what we view as failures. Let’s go back to learning French. What does that even mean? When you say I want to learn French do you have clarity in your desire? Do you want to move to France and be fluent? Or do you want to learn some words and phrases and be able to get around town for a week? Either way, if you learn a word of French you have learned some French. You have done something. This applies to almost everything we say we tried.
I tried sushi - no, you ate sushi, maybe you just didn’t like it.
I tried basketball - no you played, maybe you just weren’t any good.
I tried to get better - no, you improved, no matter however so slightly.
We have to reframe our failures as successes whenever we can as a way to improve our ability to see our forward progress. Just because you did something poorly (and by who’s measure is that even decided ?) doesn’t mean you didn’t do it. You did. You accomplished it. This provides you momentum. When we talk about momentum we often refer to the physics of the flywheel. A flywheel is hard ro get started, it takes an exponent amount of energy and pressure to begin the motion. And once it gets moving it’s own weight and forward momentum will keep it moving forward with just a minimal amount of continued and consistent effort. But once it stops you are going to have to start all over. Our minds, and our confidence and motivations, work in a similiar fashion when it comes to momentum. The small wins keep us moving forward and the failures slow us down. So can you see a reason to reframe what you are considering failures, things you tried to do but perhaps didn’t do as well as you’d liked, as wins, regardless of how small? I hope that you can. Because failure isn’t trying, it is doing without the desired result. But we do not control results, we only control execution. And if you did the thing, you executed, and if you executed then you succeeded. The thing you are calling a failure isn’t a failure at all. How can you fail at something outside of you control? You can’t. Do the thing and you’ve won. Win again and again and you’ll see your flywheel in motion with ease and the growth you desire continue to be achieved.