No, try not! Do or not do, there is no try”
-master Jedi Yoda.
from “The Empire Strikes Back.” (1980)
Master Yoda’s got something there. What’s the point of attempting something if you’re not going to set out to do your best? If you’re going to commit to something, then really commit to it. Give your best effort with the intention and anticipation of completing with overwhelming success. Otherwise, trying is just failing with dignity. You know, “well, I tried.” Trying allows a wide open loophole for you to slack off and do just enough to look good.
He also challenges those who doubt themselves with the lovely phrase, “Judge me by my size?” and then proceeds to do something amazing. It’s such a brilliant choice that the one to utter these words is the same one who is the most powerful Jedi in the universe. He can raise spaceships, and lift giant ton machinery, and is a brilliant strategist, and can wield a lightsaber with blinding and dizzying speed. And yet, he’s small, old (800 years), and seemingly frail, needing an old wooden cane to walk about.
But when his young apprentice believes that he can’t do something because it is too big, Master Yoda takes the challenge and demonstrates the power of truly committing to one’s task by raising Luke’s spaceship out of a swamp.
Stunned, disbelieving, Luck utters, “I don’t believe it.”
And his master replies solemnly, “That is why you fail.”
How does this apply to your coaching? You gotta be kidding me. It’s has everything to do with it. Only be truly believing that not only can you succeed, but you will succeed. Focus clearly on what it is that you want to accomplish and set about to do it. No matter what the size, if you are truly committed, with every belief that it can and will happen, then it invariably will.
It may not happen the specific way that you want it to go, but if you “use the force” and focus all your attention and energy to accomplishing your goal, you will succeed.
So take it on now, my young Padawan. Pick one thing that you want to accomplish. And then DO it. Don’t just settle for try.
DO.