Real Aquifer Freestyle Martial Arts - Newbury - Thatcham - Basingstoke - Calne
Try
"Make an attempt or effort to do something"
"Attempt to achieve or attain"
a word that is used by an individual who is likely hiding something they do not wish to share and that 'thing' they are usually hiding is shame, guilt or regret.
Now you may be thinking "that's harsh" or "hold on a second, people try things all the time and it has nothing to do with shame or guilt". Well in short, you are right. You can try a new class or try a new type of food or try on new clothes and it has nothing to do with the above.
The try that I am addressing is the little story we tell ourselves all the time.
Every morning I try and get up as soon as my alarm goes off. Every breakfast I try and make it healthy. Every night I try and get to bed at a reasonable hour and some of the time, I fail.
Try is the little word that we tell ourselves when it doesn't go our way but we want to avoid the guilt of having failed. "It's okay, at least you tried" we tell ourselves, or more alarmingly, we tell our children.
The simple fact is we either did what we set out to do, or we did not. The problem is that we do not hold ourselves accountable. Simply acknowledging that we put effort into hitting our goal but missed it by saying that we 'tried' is a way of accepting failure and doing nothing about it. What we should be looking at is how much effort we put in. Look at it this way.
Giving it a go (trying) = effort towards a goal. How much effort? 10% 20% 50% commitment towards the goal? How much planning did it take? What are the fundamentals for why you failed?
or
I failed. I put in 90% effort, I planned most steps along the way, I accounted for as many variations of the journey as I could but I still failed.
The first statement is meaningless and you will continue to fail time and time again. The world is littered with people who gave it a go. The second statement acknowledged the failure so you can begin to deal with it. Then by accepting the failure you are able to analyse why you failed.
Reward the effort not the result.
'Try' is a losers way of saying 'I do not know why I failed and I don't want to talk about it, just accept that I put effort in'. Where as if you accept that you failed then you can objectively look at why and go again or you can decide to quit without guilt.
If we just reward people for the result then no one will take up challenges. If we accept the result either way then people (Children especially) will forget about trying and actually start doing.
Next time you set a goal are you going to try, or plan for success?
