“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
Excuse me Master Yoda, but I beg to disagree. I understand the idea that anything less than 100% commitment is likely to be met with less than 100% success. There is value in challenging ourselves to act rather than ponder; to actually land the plane as opposed to finding 101 reasons to keep circling the airport. Commitment to do is important but dismissing the act of trying as if it is the exercise of weaklings and losers contributes to an all-or-nothing expectation that is simply not real. And its not helpful. We are learning creatures. Some of what we know is instinctive, but that is mostly connected to lower survival skills; informing our need for healthy foods, rest, avoiding dangers and the need for protection. The informational content that enables us to move successfully in the high complexity levels of interpersonal relationships, planning, weighing and evaluating is acquired through the ups and downs of exposure and experience.
Life Under Your Hood
When I finished my master’s degree the graduation included a point where I knelt so a ceremonial hood could be placed over my shoulders signifying the transition from student to master.
Along with a colored hood the designation of master is a grandiose title to wear, but it did not come to me by the mere passing of time or reaching a particular age. I earned that designation through years of research, writing, reading, debating and defending (and no, I do not require people to call me Master Jack). My abilities to think, discriminate and convey what I understood grew through evaluation, challenge, affirmation and critique. You and I do not arrive in childhood, adulthood, parenthood, or even our neighborhood having the knowledge, skills, and insight to simply do or not do. There is a cargo-ship full of trying that happens under any hood we end up wearing.
Failure to Learn from Failure is the Real Failure
We don’t read enough biographies. These honest accounts from the lives of people who have been very successful or who have accomplished great things to help others are generally diaries of failure. It is remarkably easy to sanitize success and imagine that someone came up with an idea, acted on the idea and became wildly effective overnight. There are a few such stories out there, but they are unicorns. We need to develop what researcher Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset.” If you see your abilities and previous gains and losses as fixed and a concrete predictor of your future potential, you will be more likely to turn down new opportunities. A growth mindset allows for the path of learning even through the difficulties of loss and failure. Trying works so long as you learn from it.
Happily in the Not Yet
I recently read about a school in Chicago that decided to change their grading structure in order to promote a growth mindset among their students. They kept the designations of A, B, and C, but replaced D and F with NY… Not yet. They wanted to remove the limiting, fixed idea that you failed: end of story. The story of your life is still being written. There will be beautiful successes and ugly failures along the way, but these must be regarded as episodic events in a larger story that is still being written and far from being complete.
Applied Trying
I would encourage you to think about this in the way that it affects your determination and resolve to move through setbacks. I have a friend who two years after being fired from a job told me that that it was the best thing that could have happened to her. Another friend had three business ideas that fell flat within a few months of getting them started. They learned a lot about themselves and it forced them into new paths that they would have never taken had they succeeded in keeping that job or gotten the business off the ground. Our approach to life would benefit by adopting a growth mindset where trying is the pathway to growth, change and accomplishment.
I would also encourage you to think about how this affects the way that you view the actions, inactions and growth path of others. Are you allowing room for them to try? Researchers are recommending that parents affirm effort over accomplishment. Saying, “You are a really great cheerleader” implies that they have arrived. That can present some great difficulties for them when they don’t make the cheer squad or when their team comes in 4th place at a regional competition. Acknowledging their effort, their positive attitude in the face of loss, or their discipline to practice and improve will better prepare them for a life of trying, learning and growing.
So, there you have it Luke. Yoda was well-intentioned but nevertheless wrong. You don’t get to be a sky-walker without sky-crawling, a bit of sky-tripping, and even some ego-altering sky-falling. Learn or not learn is the best prediction of future success.