Have you ever been in situations where you simply don’t understand why things are just not working out for you? You try and try, give it your all, pour your heart and soul into it and yet you feel you are getting absolutely nowhere?
I remembered writing this quite a while ago and would like to share it with you as I was reminded of this again just very recently.
A once dear friend of mine found himself in that situation, sitting in front of me in tears and frustration, repeating that he was trying so very hard – always – and yet failing.
My response was that perhaps he was simply trying too hard. He asked me to explain what I meant by trying too hard.
So this is more or less what I told him and my very personal understanding of trying too hard:
It all starts with having an idea of how things should be or how you want them to be. I believe that we should have goals, self-improve all the time, be honest with ourselves and others, and reevaluate situations time and again as they tend to change and evolve.
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One of the things that tend to stand in our way is our own impatience. We have an idea as well as an ideal in our head, often driven by our own very unrealistic expectations but also so often driven by the expectations that others have in us or we believe them to have. Expectations that are simply impossible to meet but still we try – often too hard, wanting or expecting results too fast.
As my friend is a businessman, I gave him an example that I have experienced several times in companies and businesses. It is the reaction they all had in common when business was slow or the numbers went down significantly. That is when they started trying really hard, too hard actually (in my opinion).
Many years ago one of these companies, I was consulting was sold to investors and these investors saw a company that had had amazing worldwide growth for the past five years, we are talking double digits every year. Certainly a relevant aspect to the decision making to invest in this company.
Alas, numbers had already started going down before the deal was finalized, not all too significantly yet, but due to an unexpected crisis (which we all know can occur in any business at any time), this downward spiral continued. Now please bear in mind that I only have a very rudimentary knowledge of economics but I have seen a lot and made my own (possibly completely demented) conclusions. So please be gracious with a complete amateur and bear with me, I promise I will get to the point.
A lot of companies in this situation do the following – they panic (big time). I have seen exactly this happen several times in my career. I do of course understand that an investor has mainly one thing in mind – his ROI. In my eyes, a clever investor invests long-term (I know reality is often different, and what do I know). What I have also seen is that sometimes a business needs to shrink itself into a healthy state again. This can be an opportunity for something new, something healthy and stable, even something truly great. What happens when you panic is usually the same – the need to take action, any action (more often than not, the wrong action), and again trying too hard.
In the last case, they racked their brains to increase numbers to somehow meet the targets for the fiscal year. What better way than to launch an incentive. A great idea in theory and alright if you do it once in a while, staying unpredictable. But if the first incentive doesn’t do the trick you launch the next one, and the next one, and so on… What happens is very simple.
1. Nobody does anything anymore without an extra incentive on top of what they are getting anyway.
2. As one incentive follows the next you become predictable and sales actually go down again as people wait, holding sales back because they are waiting – surprise surprise – for the next incentive. If it is not what they have hoped for, they simply do less to nothing as they wait for the next – (guess what) – hopefully even better incentive – bigger better more! You have opened Pandora’s Box!
3. Especially in this certain business, when there are only a certain amount of distributors and a certain amount of customers that have a certain amount of capital available. If that is spent on an incentive then it is likely that there is less or no capital left for the following month and the downward spiral continues.
4. The distributors start to panic, create their own incentives, or simply start screwing people to sustain their own business and income. This causes
a. disgruntled customers
b. a bad reputation (the next crisis is already approaching)
c. sales go down even more
d. it turns unto a full-fledged catch-22 situation. You have to do more incentives or other mad things that cost you dearly to just stay in business.
Why am I telling you this? They try too hard and risk losing everything instead of looking at other options. Customer relations for example. What does the customer really want and need? Why does he need it and can I comply with these demands or do I have to rethink my business model altogether?
Trying too hard often entails wanting the right thing but doing the wrong thing to get there and being too impatient.
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I hope this – rather simplified view – makes sense to you. I am not naive and know very well that there is a lot more to it than that but give me some credit for trying hard and not too hard. So that is an example of trying too hard in business. But it might also be interesting to look into what this means on a personal level.
I would like to start with a very personal example.
I have tried too hard for a great part of my life. Coming from a rather dysfunctional home with parents that were mere providers, I was never taught that I am enough, that I am ok the way I am, that I am likable or even lovable if I don’t function as expected by others. My friend once told me that I aim to please (and I did not like hearing it at the time) and he was right. It was mainly due to my upbringing (this is not meant as an excuse, more as an explanation), not being allowed to ask questions, not learning what a family should be, having no support or protection, no safe space to be in. So you try hard (often too hard) to please, to be accepted to be liked and hopefully even loved one day, or to simply survive.
But back in the days I never quite used to understand why someone would like me, and when it seemed that someone did I doubted it because I always thought I am not worth it. So I tried and tried, I tried too hard too many times.
This all started to change for me (and I am still in the process of making great progress) on one beautiful summer’s day in 1999.
It was the birth of my first child, my daughter. I made a decision in that one moment when she was first put in my arms when I felt this unbelievable surge of purest unconditional love anyone can possibly feel. That was my one moment, my personal epiphany. I finally woke up from a very long bad dream.
In all my relationships before that, I simply tried too hard. I wanted things to work so I used what was given to me by my providers – I gave myself up and functioned, trying too hard and losing so much of myself along the way.
My children saved me from a life of constantly trying too hard. They drove me to be better, to see myself, and to change and evolve into the person I am today. They love me just as unconditionally as I love them. I try, I often try hard, even very hard but I do not try too hard as often as I used to.
Sometimes it even helps to just take a step back and look at things and situations from a different perspective and if needed, even start over again before trying too hard to change or fix something that is unchangeable or unfixable. The best-known part of the Serenity Prayer says it so beautifully:
'“God, grant me the Serenity
To accept the things I cannot change...
Courage to change the things I can,
And Wisdom to know the difference.”
or as in the original version:
“God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.”
🎶My Song of the Week
Keep on tryin‘, just not too hard…
For more good music, go to this Spotify playlist where you can find all the songs from the Change & Evolve Letters!
📚My Poem of the Week
By Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
Keep Going
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
And the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than it seems
To a faint and faltering man.
Often the struggler has given up when he
Might have captured the victor's cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are.
It may be near when it seems afar.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit.
It's when things seem worst that
You musn’t quit.
👀Impressions
Mr. Spock when asked to try too hard…
Wishing you a beautiful weekend and try (just not too hard) to make it a good one. As always I look forward to your inspiring comments and feedback!
Yours
Tanja 🤗
Thanks. Where was the pretty picture taken? Good light:)
Very well said.