There Is No Try - Just Do It

There are two phases that have stuck with me all of my life ever since I first heard them.

The first is by Yoda. Yes, that's right, Yoda. The Jedi Master from the Star Wars series. "Do or do not. There is no try." When I first heard this in The Empire Strikes Back in May of 1980, I was 13 years old. Anytime afterward that I thought or heard the word "try" I would think to myself "there is no try".

The other FIERCE saying is the Nike slogan Just do it. I first heard this in 1988. I was 22 years old. That was precisely when I started the habit of getting up at least an hour earlier than I had to for work and exercise. For months, I would hit snooze for the entire hour. I failed. But I never told myself that I tried to get up, I admitted that I failed and that I would "just do it" tomorrow.I encourage all of my clients to eliminate the word “try”. They tell me that they are trying to make a difficult decision, they try to exercise regularly, they try to avoid sugar. What I look at with them is stopping the desire to protect themselves from the fear of failure.My thinking is that people use the word "try" as a protective mechanism. If they go for a FIERCE goal and don’t succeed, they can feel better the effort they made even when they don’t just do it because they were just trying. They fear failure, so instead, they fail ahead of time to sugarcoat the attempt. They spend so much time thinking it won’t work.  I understand that the fear of failure is overwhelming to many of us, and we fail ahead of time by “trying”.Instead, what if you put everything on the line and just did it 100% with your dreams and your goals? What if you only use FIERCE declarative language and tell everyone important to you that you are going to just do it?Many of us were raised to avoid failure. Our parents may have punished us when we got a bad grade on a test or if we were ashamed or embarrassed when we didn’t succeed at a race or piano recital or spoke in front of the class. Kids in school made fun of us if we lost or made a mistake or appeared nervous, and as a result, many of us carry some stress or trauma of disappointing someone or ourselves into adulthood.It is important to understand that failure is part of the journey to success. When you go past what is easy for you to achieve, you risk that failure. When we make mistakes and fail, it gives us a chance to get feedback so we can think about and understand what worked, what didn’t, and how do we want to just do it differently in the future. Then we’ll just do it again with a slight change and evaluate again. The result of this effort, evaluation and thought is that it gets us closer to ourdreams and goals. We gain FIERCE strength and knowledge that we wouldn’t have had an opportunity to get unless we just do it.I coach many people who lead teams. They are afraid to let the people fail because they are afraid it will reflect negatively on them as managers. They wind up doing too much of what the people who work for them are hired to do, that they wind up feeling bitter, exhausted and resentful. This is all even though they are trying to avoid pain for the people they manage and themselves. I encourage anyone who is in a leadership position to start leading themselves with emotional intelligence and learn from what works and what does not. Make changes in the way you train your team and do it again. You are not an effective manager if the people you lead think they have to fear failure and the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.Fear is the anticipation of pain.We literally think that pain is sure to come so we sugarcoat and just “try” to relieve the fear. What I want you to understand is that even if you fail, you will be okay. You may experience some negative emotions,  but you will ultimately be okay. You will have so much FIERCE insight than if you hadn’t proceeded with the thought just do it.If you want to experience your most fabulous life, you are going to have to be willing to increase your pain and failure threshold. Do this by thinking just do it for your dreams and goals. Use those FIERCE declarative statements and eliminate “try” from your thoughts and vocabulary. Spend more time thinking that it will work instead of fearing that it won’t. If you fail, evaluate and just do it again. Most people don’t fail, they quit and thereby guaranteeing that they won’t get the outcome they deeply desire.Leaders don’t try, they just do it. So can you!

If you struggle with a fear of failure and can’t seem to start something that is important to you, I invite you to schedule a consultation for coaching and goal setting that will help you break through mental blocks and achieve your most FIERCE dreams and goals!