"Do" concept as oppossed to "try" concept

Some thoughts on the concept of “ try ”:

If you say that you’ll “try” to do something: you start out with the possibility of failure.
It’s a way of setting up an excuse and thereby makes it easier to accept failure. However, if you set your mind to do your best, then failure is only possible if you are lazy or insincere.

For example: Someone asks you to build a wall in 2 days. If you say “I will try” and you don’t get it finished then you have failed. If you say “I will do my best” and you don’t complete the wall but you did give it your best, then you have not failed. In both cases the wall wasn’t completed so the larger goal wasn’t achieved; however, in the second case you feel better because you didn’t just fail. Think about whether you would rather say in hindsight: I tried, but didn’t get it finished (failure); or, I did my best (exactly what you set out to do), and feel good about it.

It is almost as if the word “try” is used as a rationale for lack of success. Why start anything out halfway to failure. You may be thinking: “Ok, so as long as I do my best it is ok to fail…..”. This is a defeatist attitude. Failure is ok. It is part of life. To attempt something and do your very best is all anyone can ever ask of you. Only you and God know for sure if you gave it your all.

Setting out to do your best and saying it is a way of keeping yourself honest; if you don’t do your best (are you slack, unmotivated, lazy, a bum?) then you can’t honestly say you did. All you can say is “I tried” (but how hard?).

If you want to maximize your chances of completing a task, don’t even consider failure as a possibility when you start it. Remember what that wise old sage Yoda said to Luke Skywalker: “…try not. Do or do not. There is no try”.

stw