It’s all just a Try Away
I am not doing it, but if I were to; I would excel at it
The common saying is that potential is unlimited, and a person is capable of achieving whatever they want to. Well, it is not inaccurate, but nor does true potential lie behind a locked door, that you can walk up to and unlock whenever you wish to like. Else, it is a long windy road that you need to drive on without a map, with the best odds of reaching the destination if you just keep moving.
It is not hard to imagine a skill that you want to develop, and all that sits between you and achieving perfection is giving it a try. In reality, you are the lazy one sitting around, whereas the target you want to achieve is running away at 100 miles an hour. To better explain things, I will start shooting examples of stories of myself portrayed as these 3 characters, James, Robert, and John. (Fun Fact: 3 Most common names in the world)
James is the guy who has picked up 101 hobbies and wants to be the cool guy, who’s social media bio has too few words to express all he does. With little knowledge, and yet huge passions for all those hobbies, James has imagined every minute of the day to pursue all of them during the day. Some stressful days into work, the whole timeline shifts, and the hobbies get moved to the weekend and then the month end to finally be back as New Year’s Resolutions. The reasoning for the delays being the confidence that one day, when there is the time it will take just one try to learn that golf swing, or the jiu-jitsu move, or that new recipe and the other 98 hobbies. Because isn’t on a normal day, everything, just a try away?
Robert on the other hand is a one mission man, who wants to shed off his reserved personality and transform into a motivational speaker that the world would listen to during hard times. He is the one who wants to reach out to people for standup opportunities and socialize to make a network across the city, so big that if he runs for mayor he would win. Robert also wants to date all these beautiful girls and then choose and settle for the perfect one. But just like everyone, there are some stressful work days for him as well, and the goals to talk to 5 people a day, go down to a one-person a day to maybe just catching up with the known ones, once a year. As those stressful days pass, his mission narrows to just find the perfect girl, say the perfect things, and have a perfect relation, ever after. Because isn’t finding the love of your life a try away?
John on the other hand manages stress in a way that ultimately causes more stress in the long term, by stuffing and eating it in a hamburger. Goals for him are majorly fitness-related and are at a level of professional athletes and bodybuilders, yet things have settled down to a promise of trying the next day than today. Because that is when the switch is going to flip and John will be running at Usain Bolts pace to get in the shape of his life and start to look like a muscular Hollywood Hero. All that, after just one try that has to surely come after the Uber Eats order of fried chicken. Because isn’t running and lifting weights just a try away? Just not today.
An unlimited number of examples can be wrapped around more fictional characters that represent real-life people in stressful days, giving up on things they want to do and try and put them in a corner because they seem to be just a try away. Thinking that there will be the 32nd day in a month, and on that perfect day everything will move accordingly and things will fit in place after just one try. Well it turns out nothing is just a try away, and even it was a try away, it would mean that there is only one possible outcome after that try, which in turn states that the probability is 100%. So, if that conclusion holds true, then why don’t we just do things if we know the chances of it are 100% certain.
Looking at some more maths, the probability of the simplest odds of a coin flip is 50% for heads and tails. If you add more variables, the probability only goes down. Throwing in a wild example on the other end of the spectrum will be, finding the perfect one in life, chances being 1 in 7 Billion. Back to the coin, the number of times you’ll need to flip to get heads is 2 on average, It could be 1 or could be 10, but you know the chances are you’ll get it in 2, so you try twice. Same way in 6 sided Dice, chances of getting a 6 are 1 in 6, and the minimum you should try is 6 times to get to it. You can’t just try once, and get a 6 surely. The same probabilities apply in life. If on average 1000 people apply for the same sort of job as you, and there are 100 different jobs. Your odds go from 1 in 1000 to 1 in 500 if you just try for 2 different jobs. They then go to 1 in 100 if you just apply for 10 different jobs, instead of thinking it is just a try away from applying to the one perfect job role. We have concluded a simple fact that the more you try the better the odds become.
Our mind comforts us by showing us the odds being 1 in 1 if it's just a try away, but in reality that one try gets so delayed that the chance never comes and it is a 0 in 1 chance, so the odds are 0 realistically. Try imagining the odds in anything you want to achieve in life. The more variables you start considering the lower the probability of success is, which is in turn accurate.
The understanding of all the variables in life to lay down all the possibilities and to then try majority of them in a calculated manner to beat the odds, is the key to success
Even with odds as low as 1%, to beat that you need to start wearing yourself out to try everything that might not take you to success, but will help you hunt down the odds. Start getting the participation in with all your tries. Treat it like a game, where each try is a score and each success at beating the odds is a level up. Since now you can foresee the odds and you know approximately how many tries it will take to beat the probability, now hold yourself at that standard of the one in control of things, then just leaving everything on the other side of that one try.
