The Power of Doing Instead of Trying

While I was in attendance at the Blogging While Brown I was reminded of how many people say they want to do something but never complete or finish the task. I looked around at all of these great bloggers in attendance and realized that my idea of doing instead of trying was holding true. I decided to bring back this piece I wrote a few months ago because of the motivation and vision I received from being at the conference….

One of my favorite movies of all time is The Empire Strikes Back of the Star Wars series. The reason it is one of my favorite films differs a bit from why the average Star Wars Stan love the movie.  One the particular reasons this movie sticks out to me is the character of Yoda. In the film Yoda is continuing Luke Skywalker’s training that Obi Wan Kenobi started. In one scene Yoda instructs Luke to use “The Force” to lift his spacecraft out of the swamp. Luke tells Yoda that he will “try” to carry out this feat when Yoda stops him and says…”Do or Do Not. There is no try.”

This quote from Yoda has always stuck out to me particularly in my adult life. One of the fundamental problems with most of our lives is that we are doing too much” trying” and not enough “doing”. We are always saying we are going to try instead of going into something saying we are going to DO IT.

The Nike brand has taken more than enough advantage of the moniker of “Just Do It” but the reason the slogan will never get old is because many times in life that’s what some things boil down to. Many of us want to “Just Do It” but many times we settle for “Just Trying” or “I attempted”. The problem with doing and trying is a fundamental difference in thought.

There is a great anecdote that some of you may have heard or read by the writer Zig Ziglar in his book See You At The Top about the “Fleas in a Jar” that aligns with where I am going with this post:

You can place some fleas in a jar with a lid on it. The fleas will of course begin to jump, repeatedly hitting the lid in their attempt to escape.

After about 20 minutes, the fleas begin to learn that they cannot escape and stop jumping as high as they did to begin with, to avoid smacking their head on the lid.

Once they become accustomed to the fact that they cannot escape, you can remove the lid and the fleas will continue to jump at the same height, never escaping the jar. Since the fleas BELIEVE they cannot escape the confines of the jar, they stop trying. Because of their experience with smacking their heads repeatedly, every time they tried to escape, they never even bother looking up to see that the lid is no longer there.

Many of us like the fleas in this story will be satisfied with the idea that we “tried” something instead of “doing”. It’s almost like a cop-out for whatever we want to accomplish. A person can feel validated in their psyche because “at least they tried” or they “almost did it”.  This post is not saying everything you set out to do you will accomplish. But, if you set out to just “try” something are you really invested into “doing” it. Should we  give ourselves the notion that trying is not an option puts us mentally in a space of not having any leeway to fail.

People have had debates about the idea of being able to visualize the outcome of certain situations. One thing for sure is that going into something believing in the negative or the idea that “trying” is just enough can’t be the answer either right? Just as a baseball pitcher has to visualize where he is throwing the ball before he throws it. We have to do the same within our lives. We can’t go into a situation “trying” because if we are just going into it “trying” we might as well not do it at all.

I believe that you are either playing “the game of life” to win or simply playing to lose. And when I mean win I don’t mean “winning” in the Charlie Sheen coke induced way but winning by striving to get that true happiness you deserve. In essence “trying” instead of “doing” is a way of a person proclaiming to themselves internally that they are playing to WIN.

No TRYing to lose that 15 pounds you have talked about for the last 5 years- DO IT

No TRYing to be a better father/mother to your children- DO IT

No TRYing to finishing your degree- DO IT

No TRYing to be a better lover to your mate- DO IT

No TRYing to start loving yourself- DO IT

I totally believe that the more we continue to practice doing instead of trying that we will get closer to some form of inner peace. The fundamental belief of just trying is the same as someone almost doing something. And you know what they say “Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”