Try

#18 Try. What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did/ didn’t go for it? 

(Warning- this entire post will be a rant –of a sort.)

Am I the only one who remembers what Yoda told Luke?! “No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is NO try.” (Yes, I just quoted Star Wars. So what?!)

But really people… there is NO try. Try to get up from a chair. It’s impossible. You either get up or you don’t.  Try is one of those words that we use in order to give ourselves an out if it doesn’t work the way we hoped it would.

“I’m going to try to find a job.” “I’m going to try to save money.” “I’m going to try to meet the Man of my Dreams.” “I’m going to try to be a kinder, better person.”

None of these mean anything.  Either you’re going to do it and you’re committed to it or you’re not. Trying to do something is just a big, old cop-out.  And language is a huge influencer in our lives. (Check out “What the Bleep do We Know” if you haven’t already.)  We believe the things we say about ourselves and we believe things other people say about us.  Sometimes we even take those things and turn them into things we repeat to ourselves.  And usually we say negative things to ourselves.  Like, “I can’t do it.” Or “I’m not good enough.” Etc etc etc. And the word “try” exacerbates all of it.  We can say, “Well I tried, but I’m just not smart lucky rich pretty good enough to do it.”

OR… we can change what we say.  It takes a long time to reprogram our minds. (Start now ;) We can say, “I’m committed to this. I'm not just going to try. I’m going to do it.”  (And sure, we might still fall short, but the power of our words will have supported us in going that much farther.)

This is the power of intention. 

But here’s the other part of the deal.  You have to believe that you’re going to do it.  You can be committed to something in words only and it sure-as-shit is not going to happen… unless you believe it will.  Unless you believe you deserve it and unless you take action towards it (even itty-bitty, baby steps of action will do).  This is the tricky part, because if you say you’ll try you don’t actually have to take steps towards.  But if you’re going to do it, you have to do *something*. Anything. Really… just any little thing that will put you on the path towards what you say you want will work.  And then at some point you won’t have to try anymore all the momentum of your positive thinking and your little baby steps will take over.

I didn’t get a lot of the things I was "committed" to getting this year. Know why? Cause I wasn’t really committed to it. I wasn’t taking those baby steps. Cause all I was doing was “trying.”

It doesn’t go away that easily.  It takes practice to stop "trying".

But one thing’s for sure. I’m committed to being honest about what I want. 

Either I’m going for it or I’m not and I’m not going to be embarrassed about not going for something I’m not ready for or about going for something I really want.

What about you? What *aren’t* you going to "try" this year?