If At First You Don’t Succeed…
Pause, reflect, and consider before you try again.
Probably my all-time favorite quote is from Yoda:
“Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”
What this means is not that you shouldn’t try something, but rather that the energy you give to that something must be whole-hearted. If you approach the thing you plan to “try” with resignation, defeat, and no expectation of making it happen, why bother? But if, instead, you approach the thing you plan to “do” with tenacity, optimism, and potential for making it happen, do it. That’s the meaning of Yoda’s (in)famous quote.
There is, however, another important quote to consider here. Misattributed to Albert Einstein, the relevance of Rita Mae Brown’s quote is still important:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Doing something once and then giving up is often defeatist and denies room for change, improvement, or alternatives. Few things just work on the first pass, so trying more than once can be important.
However, the question is that of variables. Which is what the quote alluded to in the title of this article addresses:
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
Trying again is good, but not without alterations to the action.
Pause, reflect, and consider before you try again
No matter what you are working on doing, and whether it will result in anything tangible or intangible, the goal of any action is to succeed at what you are doing.
When you make a first attempt, or a first “try”, if it doesn’t succeed, don’t just give up or try again. Instead, pause and reflect.
Pause, so that you can analyze what you did. How and why didn’t it work?
Then, reflect. What went into my effort? How did I approach it? What things can I do that I didn’t do last time? Are they big or small? How many variables are there?
Then consider. Is this goal still something I desire? Am I willing to give it more energy and DO IT again (try again)?
Pause, reflect, and consider. If you’re still good to go, make the necessary adjustments and try again.
What does it mean to you to succeed?
How do you define success? This is a deeply personal question because success is utterly personal. For some people, success is only found in the big, inspiring, ginormous accomplishments. For others, success is getting out of bed in the morning, remembering to take their pills, and the like. Both are completely right and true.
Success is as subjective and in the eye of the beholder as beauty and perfection. One person’s definition of success is another’s definition of failure. There is no right or wrong, it’s a personal perspective that belongs to only you.
This is why, if at first you don’t succeed, you alone know if you should try again or move on. Whatever it is you are working to “succeed” at is all about you. Hence, you’re the only one who knows what it is, what it means to you, how that makes you feel, and so on.
Also, because of the many variations and degrees of things that go into success, you can achieve a partial success that begs the question of stopping or trying again.
If you achieve partial success…
Partial success is utterly a matter of perspective. If the success is partial, what’s missing? Again, pause, reflect, and consider. Does it matter that you reach whatever the completion should be? Try again to get to 100%, or move on from where you are to the next thing?
This is why both having goals and paying attention to the journey matter. Having goals gives you the target to aim for, the achievement to reach. But on the journey to the goal, you might find that your target changes and that the achievement you’re seeking to reach shifts.
The journey is your everyday life experiences. It’s the happenings that happen, the rote and routine coupled with the moments you seek and find in any given year, month, day, or situation. Being on the journey and awake, mindful, and consciously aware lets you find all sorts of amazing new discoveries along the way.
This is why partial success might lead you to a new goal or a redefinition of what success is. Since what it means to succeed is utterly dictated by you, and you alone, the what of it is changeable. Try again, try anew, or move on to something else entirely? The choice is yours.
The best part about this is that even if you choose wrong, you can choose again. Unless what you’re doing kills you, you get to try something new and do something different if at first you don’t succeed.
The positivity of the potential and possibility within this is incredible, and you’re worthy and deserving of experiencing it.
If at first you don’t succeed, pausing, reflecting, and considering before you try again isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you are doing what you’re trying to do with your whole ass, rather than trying with half your ass, you open the way to succeed. Knowing that you can choose and decide if you don’t succeed to try again, you find yourself able to make slight changes and alterations to the attempt and use the journey and the process to get anywhere you desire to go, or even get to somewhere better.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. From that broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, that can spread to those around you for their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred-and-eighty-ninth (589) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.
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