Don't try!

Do or do not. There is no try.--Yoda

When making a commitment, particularly a commitment to yourself, it’s often put as “I’ll try.” I’ll try to exercise. I’ll try to eat right. I’ll try not to turn into a pig in front of the TV when football season starts. Yoda, however, had a good point. There is no try. In trying, no action takes place--you’re either doing or not doing; you never get to try.

What I think people often mean when they say “I’ll try,” is “I’d like to but I don’t know how.” Don’t know how to start. Don’t know how to keep it up. Afraid to start because what if I don’t do it right.

A while back, I was musing over making mistakes. It dawned on me that the only way to avoid making mistakes was to do nothing. Mistake-free performance generally means nothing happened. To try means delaying until mistake-free performance can occur. Which is another way of saying “when hell freezes over.”

The next time you think about saying “I’ll try,” consider saying “I want to,” instead. By stating a preference for doing, you’ve put into your mind a very different picture that includes a action instead of stasis. Once you’ve stated that you want to do something, the likelihood goes up that you will actually do it. And that beats trying every time.