I’ve been trying to quit smoking for 3 months.
No, I’ve been thinking about quitting smoking for 3 months. If I had really tried to quit, I would have done so. But I haven’t really tried because I have been listening to that little voice inside of me that says “Keener, if you try to do this, you’re gonna fail, son. So why bother? You know how you hate to fail at anything.”
Kinda dumb, huh? No, it’s worse than dumb: it’s frakking stupid, as the cast of Battlestar Galactica would say.
The problem is that, when we don’t try, we can’t win. Or, to put it another way:
zappos “If you don’t climb the mountain, you can’t see the view.” -Author Unknown
Of course, for the example that I’ve given, one could even say that not trying is the same as failing. I’ve got to get that little voice inside of me to realize this. Or, I’ve got to just ignore the voice and move forward.
Am I the only human being on the planet that thinks like this? Of course not. Almost everyone is guilty of using the “If I don’t try I can’t fail” excuse at times. It’s a leading cause of procrastination, especially among perfectionists. (Ever put off going on that diet because you’re afraid you won’t stick with it?)
And it can be hard to overcome. But I am convinced that anybody, including me, can overcome it if we set our minds on doing so.