Yoda, of Star Wars fame, said many wise things. One his pearls of wisdom which I liked the best and often use in conversation with clients is “Either do, or do not do. There is no try”.
I usually say this to a client when they say they’ll try to do something. To me ‘trying’ is the first step to failure. If you go into something with the mindset that you are going to try to do it, you are already giving yourself the option that it might not happen.
When a client says they going to “try not to eat cake at work” or “try to go to bed earlier”, I know for a fact they will not succeed. The best way to maximise the chance that you will do something is to go into it thinking that you ‘will do’ it.
You’ll already be doing this with countless things in your life. You don’t ‘try’ to go to work, feed the kids, etc – you just do it. You have made it non-optional in your mind. All you need to do is apply this mental shift to the things you need to do to get healthier, lose weight, tone up (or whatever you want to archive) and you will vastly increase your chance of doing it.
So, “I’m going to try and eat less rubbish” becomes “I will eat healthily”. “I’ll try and make it to the gym” becomes “I go to the gym after work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays”.
Next time you catch yourself saying you’re going to try and do something, stop and ask why you’re only trying. Why not just do it. If you genuinely can’t on the odd occasion, it’s not the end of the world.
So, again “Either do or do not do. There is no try”.
