“No. Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
– Yoda
There’s going to be times when something feels impossible.
Like all you can do is “try” to make it happen.
In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker felt like using The Force was impossible.
So he said he would ‘give it a try’.
What he didn’t realize, though, was that by saying the word ‘try’ he had already accepted defeat.
And when I think about it, I’m reminded of a Tony Robbins session where he spoke with a woman who was struggling in her marriage and told Tony that she had ‘tried everything’ to make it work and nothing was changing.
So Tony challenged her to do something.
He asked her to turn around and ‘try’ picking up the chair she was sitting on.
When she reached down and picked it up he told her, “No, you picked it up. I say ‘try’ to pick it up.”
She looked confused so he repeated himself, “Try to pick it up.”
Standing there, not knowing what to do, Tony looked at her and told her, “No, you picked up the chair. I asked you to ‘try’ and pick it up. You either pick it up, you don’t pick it up, or you try to pick it up.”
The point he was making is that when we say we’re going to “try” to do something, we’ve already started coming up with excuses for why it won’t work out.
Think about it this way.
Are you trying to improve your health? Or are you doing it?
Are you trying to improve your relationships? Or are you doing it?
Are you trying to get in shape? Or are you doing it?
When you really break it down, you’re never trying something — you’re either doing it… or you’re not doing it.
But ‘trying’ is accepting defeat and making excuses before you ever get started.
And if you can recognize the difference, eliminate the word ‘try’ from your dictionary.
Make a decision to either do it, or not do it.
Commit to the outcome you want.
Then move forward.
But there is no try.