New year, new me – we used to say in January. My first proposition for the upcoming months is to encourage you to change your mindset. This is the first article from the series Change your mindset in 2021  and it’s about art – art of trying.

The most important skill

Probably you have already new year resolutions. There is also the possibility that one of them is to learn new skills. There are many uses but in my opinion, the skill of trying is the most important one and the most powerful.

Let me explain what I mean. By this term I mean to don’t give up if you are receiving a rejections or failures for a long time. This skill includes your consistent actions, without excuses, to achieve everything that you want. It can be compared to a humorous situation – if the doors are closed use a window to enter the house. If windows are also closed as well, drill a hole in the wall ( of course do not try it in real life..)

Why is this so important? Because it builds your perseverance. It allows you to look for different options to solve your problem and you will see the world as a place where everything is possible. You need to switch from thinking “I can’t” to “I can”.

It’s time to explore it deeper.

My inspirations

I was the person who gave up,very fast. The turning point in that was the inspirational TED talk which encouraged me to be better in trying and looking for alternative solutions.

The guy from the video talks about what he has learned from rejections. He tried to do a task, which looked at first glance impossible and sometimes.. stupid. The effect of his action was unexpected and surprising. He learned that it’s all about asking and try.

My inspiration is also people like Elon Musk, who has his goals and he does everything to accomplish them, no matter how many tries and how much effort they require.

Adopting a growth mindset

Before we can feel confident and motivated to make many tries as it possible (and required to accomplish something) it’s good to also have something which is called “growth mindset”

It’s meant to believe in your ability to achieve the unattainable ( in other words – to work hard and with perseverance) even if rejections and mistakes happen.

You can switch to this mindset by:

• Accept your imperfection – nobody and nothing will be perfect, never. If you wait for perfection there is a huge chance that you don’t find it. Imperfection is beautiful.
• Don’t avoid challenges – because this is the best way to learn and grow. If you see that something is too much for you, break it down into smaller parts or ask for help.
• Develop inner speech – pay attention to what you speak loudly or just in your mind. It reflects how we perceive the world and ourselves.
• Accept yourself as you are – your pros and cons. Don’t seek approval from others, because people are changing and you and only you are the only person that you will be with for the entire life.
• Learn and gain feedbacks – constant learning is key. Learning is also gaining knowledge from failures and feedback from others (of course if they are constructive).

What if..

Fear of trying comes from the unknown results of our actions. What will I do if something will go wrong? What will be our family or friends’ reaction?  How will I survive the defeat? And many more. We used to draw in our minds the worst scenarios. The truth is that most of them will never happen. Really. 

Notwithstanding, if this fact doesn’t convince you to start trying I will tell you something more. Let’s sit for the moment and think about the worst outcome which could happen in a plan/dream that you have. If it is something that you can live with? I’m 100% sure that yes. If the loss from this outcome can be recovered? I also think that it’s possible.

There are two categories of loss that you can expect – mental and physical. Physical means that you can lose money, or something material that belongs to you. Mental is about bad emotions which you can experience or criticism from others. Again, in reality, both are not something serious and it’s not the end of the world (of course I’m not speaking here about really serious outcomes like someone’s diseases or death).

Money or any other physical items which we can lose we are able to buy or have them again- it’s all about our effort and time. The mental part is more complicated – it matters how we perceive the world. In the philosophy of trying we don’t care about people’s opinions because we have stable and strong self-esteem. On the other hand, if we experience bad feelings we have to know how to work with them.

Be like Google Maps

If you have the right mindset in place it’s time to start. The art of trying can be applied to short and long term plans for both the principles are the same.

It’s all about the right plan and navigation within it. The right plan is your goal decomposed into as small steps as possible. Each step should be an action that will take at least a few minutes/hours (for short term goals) or few days (for long term goals).

Navigation is all about what you will do if you fail at any point. If you use Google Maps and you, accidentally or not, lose your route, the application doesn’t command you back to the starting point but it will give you an alternative way to your destination from the point where you get lost. Be the same – for each step, it’s nice to have an alternative scenario if something will go wrong. Trust me, there is always a different way to arrive at your destination.

The beauty of rejections

I have started this article with a TED talk where one guy is speaking about his experience from receiving rejections. For centuries, in common understanding, rejection has a negative meaning. I would like to change this and convince you that you can see the beauty in it.

In this case, beauty means a new experience that you gain along with rejection. Rejection doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you. I would say that is a sign that you are hungry. Hungry of turning your dreams into reality. The more you try, the more likely you will get what you want.

I would like to share an example from my life – when I looked for my first job in Cracow in 2018 I responded to more than 150 job ads. Guess how many responses I received? The answer is.. 5. One of them was from my current company. It took me 6 months but at that time I believed that I could get a new job so I kept going because I knew that it was possible and I have to just try as much as it required.

Let it go

I feel that I have to point out one important thing. If you feel that your trying will cost you more (health, money, etc) than benefits that you can get from your goal just let it go.

Thank you for reading till the end. If you would like to be informed about new articles and receive information about interesting articles you can sign up for my newsletter.