Should We All Just Stop Trying? |
If at first you don’t succeed, what are you supposed to do?
The standard answer, of course, is try again. But the new book, Stop Trying, by writer and former music executive Carla Ondrasik, begins from a more psychologically incisive question: What, exactly, does mean—and what does it do? Ondrasik brings a pragmatic, experience-based sensibility to questions of agency, effort, and locus of control.
In contemporary life, trying has become a kind of moral placeholder. It signals effort and sincerity.
“I’ll try to be there.” “I’m trying to do this project on time.” “I’ll try to call you later.” These statements sound reasonable, but they often describe an internal state rather than a behavior. They mark intention without commitment, effort without execution.
The use of the word is so commonplace that the other day, I said, “I'm trying to get my act together to write.” And I was talking about this article!
But what if we removed the word try from our vocabulary? This might sound like semantics. But that small linguistic shift forces a fundamental change in mindset from avoiding blame for possible failure to a willingness to be held accountable. And from an external to an internal locus of control.
What “Trying” Signals
Research on self-regulation indicates that vague, intention-based goals (“I’ll try to…”) are far less likely to produce behavior than commitments to concrete action (“I will do X at Y time”).
The word try preserves ambiguity. When people say they are trying, they often mean........