Back in 2008, I went through a brief Tony Robbins phase. Now, I don’t worship the guy like some people (I think he wavers between cheesy and brilliant depending on the moment), but one instance from one of his seminars really stuck out in my mind.
A woman had stood up in the audience and I think she was saying that she had been chronically depressed for years and sometimes couldn’t get out of bed because she was so upset, etc. Tony then worked with her for a bit, going through her life choices, her relationships, giving her advice on how to change some her mindsets and making her aware of some of her negative beliefs. As he often is in one and one situations, he was spot on and amazingly insightful.
And as he went through this with her, she kept falling back to “Well, I tried that once and…” or “Yeah, I think I’ll give that a try next time…” or “Yeah, I can try that…”
Finally, he snapped at her. He raised his voice… “Show me try. You keep saying you tried, or you’re going to try. Show me try.”
She stood there with a dumb look on her face. “I don’t understand.”
“Try to pick up the chair behind you. Show me how you try to do it.”
She leans back and picks it up. He says, “No, that’s picking it up, show me how to try and pick it up.” She puts it down, hesitates, puts her hands on it, then looks at him. “No, that’s not picking it up. Show me try.” She gets confused again and slowly picks up the chair. “No, now you’re picking it up. I told you not to pick it up. I told you to try and pick it up.”
She’s really confused now and getting kind of angry. So she puts it down, and then acts like it’s really heavy, pretending to grab it and strain to lift it.
“No, that’s not picking it up. Show me try. You keep talking about how you try to do all of these things, and I don’t know what try is. Show me try.”
At the time, as I was watching it, I got his point (you either do something or you don’t), but I thought he was being kind of harsh. I thought to myself, “There is such a thing as try… sometimes it’s just really, really hard to do something!”
Since then, I’ve coached for three years and probably 50-100 more clients. And now whenever I hear a guy say, “I guess I’ll try to do that next time,” I explode at them like Tony Robbins.
Yes, things in life are hard. Yes, changing yourself is hard. And yes, sometimes you fail to do something even though you put a lot of effort into it. Or sometimes you only get halfway.
But at the end of the day, you either do it or you don’t. And the second I hear a guy say, “Hey, I tried, right?” You didn’t fucking try. You failed. And “I plan on trying that.” Don’t even bother. The second you plan on trying, you’re planning on failing. Trying implies failure. It’s a weasel word. It tells people, “I’m not really going to do it, but you won’t be able to blame me for failing, because I’ll say that I tried.”
Or more accurately, you’re telling yourself, “I’m probably going to fail, so at least this way I can’t be blamed, because I’m going to try right?” You’re protecting your ego and sabotaging your results in the process.
You either do it or you don’t. I know it’s harsh. I know it’s hard. And that’s OK. I know you’ll often fail. And that’s OK too. But don’t go out saying, “OK, I’m going to try to be more aggressive tonight.” You’re already weaseling your way out of success. You’re already accepting failure before you even begin. Go out and say, “I AM going to be more aggressive tonight.” It’s a commitment. It’s a commitment and if you don’t live up to it, it’s your fault. If you weren’t aggressive, then you weren’t aggressive. And that’s OK. Don’t say, “Well, I tried to be aggressive, that counts, right?” Trying doesn’t count. Trying isn’t worth anything. You weren’t aggressive. It’s that simple.
Same with stuff like, “I tried to get her out on a date,” or “I tried to kiss her, but the moment wasn’t right,” or “I tried to get over my anxieties, but they’re too hard.” All I hear is, fail, fail and fail.
And that’s OK. Failing is OK. Become OK with failing at something. You’re never going to shoot 100%. No one is. You only improve by failure. You don’t improve by trying. As long as you hide from failure with weasel words like “trying,” you’re never going to learn, you’re never going to become resilient, and you’re always going to be anxious as hell.
Get your dating life handled. Become an attractive man once and for all, without faking it or pretending to be someone you’re not.
Models: Attract Women Through Honesty has been referred to as the best book in the field by many, and has received five-star reviews from all over the world.
I am intrigued enough to post a reply but not sure I get why this is useful. I was tempted to detail my own feelings on TR, but I guess I can live with your summary.
TR talks about taking massive action and that if you can’t you are “blocked.” Identifying those blocks and overcoming them seem to me to be the nugget of gold. If I am “blocked” by some sub-conscious cross purpose with my conscious goal, then exhorting my to “do, not try” is not likely to succeed.
Is there any link to the video? I’d like to see it.
“And that’s OK. Failing is OK. Become OK with failing at something. You’re never going to shoot 100%. No one is. You only improve by failure. You don’t improve by trying. As long as you hide from failure with weasel words like “trying,” you’re never going to learn, you’re never going to become resilient, and you’re always going to be anxious as hell.”
You only improve by failure. So true, if you don’t do it you don’t learn. You learn form your mistakes. I’ve had a lot of embarrasing moments in PU and that’s how I’m learning.
I see trying as the bit in between doing nothing and succeeding/failing.
Trying can be both a positive and negative thing. It solely depends on whether it refers to the verbal or the physical. Saying that you will try to approach 5 girls this week is kinda negative. Physically walking up and attempting to speak to these girls is where I think the positive try comes to fruition.
At first glance I had a similar reaction to Jamie, “I see trying as the bit in between doing nothing and succeeding/failing”.
After taking a second look at the article I came to understand Mark’s point.
Say you want to get a girls phone #. You go up to her, start a conversation, and get blown out. Sure you “tried to get her number”, but in reality you succeeded at approaching her and failed at getting her number. If you think of it in those terms you probably did something wrong during your approach or conversation which led to her not giving out her number.
If you give yourself a false sense of accomplishment “well at least I tried” then you will never see what areas need improvement.
OK, I see the point that we can use words in certain ways to weasel out of committing to action and accepting the results whatever they are. Mark gives examples that are weasel-y and it’s worth examining our commitment to a goal.
It’s just that “to try” does not preclude “to do” in my understanding of the word. For example, if I tell you to, “Re-frame 10 negative thoughts,” to aleviate your depression, you may answer, “I tired that but it didn’t work.” That could be weasel-y, or it could be that you spent hours with a therapist fully committed to the task but the results did not match expectations.
Where am I wrong?
Hey Mark!
I don’t totally agree with you, or rather I think there’s a problem with the definition of failure. You said failure is OK, but to be honest, most of the people associate failure with bad emotions. So I think the basic idea of trying, that it’s okay to fail is actually good. Michael Jordan said: “I can accept failure, everybody fails at something, but i can’t accept not trying!” also he said, like you wanted to signify in your post, that he always assumes that he’s going to succeed. Because as soon as he thinks about failure, he creates an obstacle, which isn’t there.
So my point is, I think trying itself is good, because it’s better if you at least try it than to give up immediately. But also I should always assume that he/she ‘s going to succeed and not trying in the first place.
Sorry if there are some mistakes in the text, i’m from Austria
Greez Lyze
I think the issue here isn’t the definition of “Try” it’s the way it’s used. Yes, you can use “try” in ways that reinforce positive beliefs or support good actions.
But many people use it to weasel out of accepting responsibility for their failures. That’s what this post is aimed to.
“Do or do not; there is no try” – Yoda
Just what I wanted to say. XD
My thoughts in this post Mark is that i use a totally different approach to the word “try”.
By going out and trying to be aggresive you achived it you went out and “tried” to be aggresive but you dont get any learning when you succeed you must fail in order to get better.
Im a pro poker player an like seduccion the nature of both games tend to make you fail and succeed
If you are not failing at least 50% of the time you are doing something wrong
In general, this rule (which, for the reason JT outlines, I call the “Jedi Rule”) is one that I use a lot.
However, I think TR’s example was unfair. “Show me trying to pick up a chair” is unfair, because there is not normally much effort required to pick up a chair.
The word “try” derives from the same root as “trial”, and in another sense is a synonym for “test”. To say “I will try” or “I tried” is to acknowledge that something is going to be testing, or a trial. To show “try” in the context of lifting something one would have to say, “Show me trying to lift that very heavy object.” Then, when the person fails to lift it, you can say “That’s not trying, that’s not picking up the heavy object” but to do so is to negate the effort that is put into it.
Of course, some people find lifting heavy objects easier than others do. Those people might look scornfully on the person who fails to pick up the heavy object and assume that they are simply not putting enough effort into it (which, in the sense that effort is used as a synonym for absolute value of physical force, would be accurate; but effort as proportion of maximum possible output is a relative measure).
It is always questionable to take a physical analogy and translate it into a psychological question like this.
The problem being targeted by TR is the idea that “I will try” means either “I will not give it much effort” (which adds up to, “I won’t put it to the test”, in other words, “I won’t try”) or else, “I believe that I will fail.”
On the first one, as I said, I sometimes think that people who are good at something assume that those who aren’t are simply not putting the effort in (that is, are people whose “I’ll try” means “I won’t try”) when in fact they are giving it everything they have. For example, I trained with a sports team at university, and wasn’t very good; in training some of the other players would say, “Come on, treat it seriously, some of us have a proper match this week and need to get real practice in!” – but I was as serious about it as they were – I wanted to win the practice games and did everything in my power to do so, I just did not have the ability. I have in other situations been the one who was impatient with others for “not trying” when actually they were giving it everything at something that didn’t suit them.
On the second option, of “believe I will fail”:
Luke Skywalker: “I don’t believe it!”
Yoda: “That is why you fail.”
The trouble is, repeated failures, for some people, become learned failure, which reinforces the belief that, “I will fail at this” and encourages more negative “I will try” statements. I am not sure the advice, “Become OK with failing at something.” is helpful with that situation, because it still does not teach success.
Samuel Beckett is credited with:
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
Which I think encapsulates the point of the “being ok with failure” line, but there is always the risk of Homer Simpson’s model being what happens in people’s minds:
“You tried your best and failed miserably, the lesson is: ‘Never try’.”
There is always the possibility that “I will try” simply means, “Shut up and get off my back already – I’m just not ready for that yet!”
As I said at the top of this (now lengthy) comment, I like the “there is no try” rule in general. But sometimes it means that I take a careful look at the situation and say to myself, “Alright. If I have to choose between doing and not doing, then I choose not to do it, and instead do something to prepare myself to be able to do it in the future.”
This post right here says it all… well done SnowdropExplodes.
After our BC, I think if I’d written or said something like this you’d shrug your shoulders + say, almost shout in exasperation:
“Stop the mental masturbation!” (btw I hate that term)
So just do it.
And now look what you’ve done – people are breaking down the word ‘try’, the latest poster even replied with 673 words on the topic!
lol, notice I’ve been eerily silent in this comment thread.
Masturbators will be masturbators…
btw I was referring to your original article as well ; )
You have to remember, I don’t give the same in-person advice to everybody. So yes, in person I would have told you to stop analyzing. But that’s unique to your situation and needs.
There are some people who desperately need to hear this. You did too, but I told you in person.
I think we are all over analyzing the word anyway. ‘Try’ is for most people a figure of speech that we say on impulse that can either mean ‘yes i will do it’ or ‘i’ll maybe do it’.
Lest people still don’t get it, let’s drive the nail further in: this isn’t a semantic issue about what ‘Try’ means. TR obviously caught on the woman’s victim mentality and called her attention to it. It wouldn’t be appropriate in every situation, which is the challenge of all advice columns: getting people to know if the advice was relevant to them.
I think consolation is a lot like praise–it only works if someone else is giving it to you. Just as self-praise is obnoxious, so self-consolation can also be a form of excuse (“It’s not my fault, I can’t help the situation cos I’VE TRIED.”)
Well said.
“Losers always whine about doing their “best.” Winners go home and fuck the prom queen” (Sean Connery).
I was watching this clip and reminded me a lot your blog.
It’s a brasilian show, translated in English is “Kiss on the mouth or slap in the face”.
Guys saying pickup lines, plowing and giving compliments in the beaches of Brasil! These guys don’t try, there is no failure, it’s just a slap or a kiss.
You can check it here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec_tfCvbInM&feature=player_embedded
It’s little things like this that make me actually appreciate NLP. For anyone interested in other self-talk traps “Great Ways to Sabotage a Good Conversation” is a good book for about 10 bucks that has some intriguing examples.
Specifically related to ‘try,’ ‘Should’ fulfills a similar function. When I say that I ‘should’ do something, Im subtly implying to myself that I don’t want to do it, and that it’s okay I fail to follow through because I didn’t actually commit to the action.
Yoda said it first to luke skywalker.. the whole “Do or do not, there is no try”
Good stuff, I got something out of it. I can connect it to your power in vulnerability article, admitting failures is better than trying to be a fake.
This whole post kept making me recall this one quote from an episode of the Simpsons. The episode involved the character, Sideshow Bob, who’s in prison and exclaiming “I am presently incarcerated, imprisoned for a crime I did not even commit. ‘Attempted murder,’ now honestly, did they ever give anyone a Nobel prize for ‘attempted chemistry?’”
Now, let’s forget the “Attempted Murder” parts for a sec (since that’s a whole ‘nother boat) and Bob is absolutely onto something with the second part of the quote. Neither you or anyone else can really measure success in any way through “tries” and “attempts.” Thinking that way is really just rationalizing failures, acting as if getting 99.9% of the way there is the same as 100% of the way.