“Do, or do not. There is no Try.” said Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, way back in 1980. Ever since, the word “Try” has gotten a pretty bad rap. Well I’m here to tell you that “Try” is not a dirty word. In fact, Try is essential to growth. No one ever achieves success without one first having “Tried”.
So today, we’re going to look at why the work try has gotten such a bad rap, and why I believe that the word try is essential for growth and success.
First of all, it must be said that the word try is often misused. People who are lazy sometimes say that they will TRY to do something, when in reality they really have no intention of doing it. Have you ever heard someone say I will TRY to be there at a certain time and they actually turn up 2 hours later? This causes people to not trust in the word try. They want something more convincing. Tell me you’re DEFINITELY going to do this or you’ll be here by this time for sure.
But it seems to me like this is only a small instance of the word try at any rate. And yet the word try has become synonymous with these negative sentiments, of people who try, as being lazy or using the word try as an excuse for not achieving something. The same goes for that matter with people who say they are “Doing their best”. This is also taken as an excuse, and equally gets a bad rap.
Hence, the idea of “There is no Try” has been jumped on by all the ‘bosses from hell’ around the world to demand that something is done, regardless of whether or not it is even possible.
Having spent a good part of my life working in sales, I can personally attest to having worked with a few of those ‘bosses from hell’ that insisted a specific result be achieved. Any statement like “I will try” was met with wrath and ridicule. There is not try they would say! They demanded that it be done regardless of how unachievable it may have been.
These days, the modern Corporate equivalent of “There is no try” is the term “non-negotiable”. These days your boss will tell you that you MUST achieve a certain number of sales, targets, KPI’s or whatever the case may be. This is NON-NEGOTIABLE they will tell you.
I remember when I was working in Corporate Sales one time, I was the No 1 Sales Agent for our company, getting more sales than anyone else in the whole company. I was assigned to a new elite team made up of the very best agents from our company. We were working on a new project with wildly unrealistic expectations. How unrealistic you ask? Well, to give you some idea, we were expected to get more sales per day then what we were able, in reality, to achieve in a whole week! Remember, this elite team was the handpicked, best of the best. We were constantly told, you MUST achieve these numbers, this is NON-NEGOTIABLE. Well, they discovered that simply saying something is non-negotiable doesn’t make it possible!
In fact, these days the reverse is true. Sayings like “There is no TRY” and “non-negotiable” have become synonymous with bad management. It is used as an excuse by inept or incompetent management as to why their people are not achieving things that were never achievable in the first place. They will say that something is non-negotiable so as to pass the buck onto their team for the fact that it can’t be done. This is non-negotiable, so therefore if you don’t achieve it, it’s your fault. This is to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. Well, as I’ve said, they soon find out that simply saying non-negotiable doesn’t, by some mysterious magic, make it possible!
“Simply saying non-negotiable doesn’t make it possible!”
So by now, we’ve dispelled the myth about TRY being a bad thing. So now let’s look at what try REALLY means and why you ALWAYS want to try!
Born To Try
I believe that we as humans were born to try, hence the title of this Blog. Tony Robbins poses the question, how long do you give a new born baby to walk, before you stop them from trying anymore? That would be ridiculous he says, the baby will TRY to walk UNTIL he or she succeeds! No wonder so many adults walk!
How many times do you TRY to ride a bike, drive a car, tie your shoes, do a new skill at work, or ANYTHING before you succeed?
When you’re dead and the mortician asks you to lay perfectly still, you’ll do that perfectly first time! And that will be the first and only time in your life that you’ve EVER done ANYTHING perfectly first time. Apart from that, you’ll never do ANYTHING perfectly until you have first tried, tried again, tried again and so on UNTIL you were able to do it!
TRY is not only essential for success, but it also unavoidably creates growth. The more that a baby tries to walk, not only will they get better at it, but their muscles will also grow stronger because of it.
The same goes for “Doing your Best”. Your best is a moving target. Your best will never be good enough the first time you do it. The baby tires to walk and they do their best, but it is not good enough to enable them to walk until they keep trying.
But if you “Do your best” every day for 6 months, the ‘best’ you do in 6 months will be better than the ‘best’ you were doing when you first started.
For me, the concept of TRY is perhaps best summed up by Og Mandino…
I will persist until I succeed.
I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course in my veins. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.
I will consider each day's effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow, of itself, may be trifling, and seem of no consequence. Yet from such childish swipes will the mighty oak eventually tremble. So it will be with my efforts of today.
I will persist until I succeed.
~ Og Mandino
History is littered with people who are famous for TRYING. Christopher Columbus set out to discover a new route to India (which is why native Americans are referred to as ‘indians’). Instead, he hit The New World. He FAILED to achieve what he was TRYING to do, and yet became wildly successful. He is one of the most successful failures in history. Just imagine if he had not TRIED.
I have always seen myself as being a TRYER, and I’ve never considered that a bad thing. TRYING is your birthright. It is something that you were born to do. Never forget that, never let anyone discourage you, never stop believing that you were Born to Try and NEVER EVER strop TRYING!
Now, here’s your homework…
We all have things that we want to try but for whatever reason keep getting put in the too hard basket. Well, you were born to try so today is the day that you stop putting those things off. Right now I want you to pick just 1 thing that you have been putting off that you can start to take action on today. And then, obviously, I want you to TRY that thing. Regardless of whether or not you think you will succeed first go, just TRY.
Let me know your experiences in the comments below….