Try For The Sake Of Trying

We were picking out a movie to rent the other day and in the comedy section one interesting DVD jacket read…“If at first you don’t succeed, lower your standards!” We all had a good chuckle about that idea and inwardly I felt rewarded that my children could see the reverse psychology behind the comment. Too often the world’s view is telling us to be happy with apathy and passiveness. Negative comments from others prevent a child from thinking they can achieve something never tried before. Self-doubt stops a child from making an effort to attempt a new challenge.

One of the greatest gifts a mother can five her child is the encouragement to try. There are so many little catch phrases that we hear all the time on this topic. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” “Never, never give up.” “When the going gets tough the tough get going.” “Anything the mind of man can conceive, it can achieve.” These are not new concepts. Every motivational speaker has several of these clichés in their speeches. Our own prophet encourage us to not be afraid to achieve. President Kimball’s phrase, “Just Do It,” (Do it, Do it right and do it right now!”) is a family motto in many homes.

I personally am a firm believer in the poser of “one” and the influence he or she can have on the group. But this influence will not be felt if one never tries. Positive encouragement for a child to be a participant instead of a spectator is acted upon when it comes from someone they trust. An individual’s decision to run for an office at school, give a speech, write an article for the school newspaper on their viewpoint, reach out to make a new friends, try out for an athletic team, apply for a scholarship or a myriad of other opportunities comes mainly from an outside source. Let that influence and encouragement come from you.

There is something to be gained by just trying. We don’t win everything we try out for nor does everyone agree with our viewpoints but the act of doing makes us a better person and gives us the experience to finally succeed. For most of us, this is a better person and gives us the experience to finally succeed. For most of us, this is a learned behavior and that is why encouragement from the outside is so important. Success is usually not reached on the first attempt. Ralph Waldo Emerson stated, “That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do…not that the nature of the thing is changed, but our power to do so is increased.” Your children cannot see their own potential as you do. Our job as mothers and parents is to help them see it and achieve it!
Theodore Roosevelt said it this way. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

There is a saying that we recite in our family that goes… “There are those individuals who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened.” This saying when contemplated can bring about positive introspection and self-analysis. Who wants to be the one who wonders what happened? Or even who saw it happen. Remind your child that, “It doesn’t hurt to try” … compare and enlighten them that the lasting hurt is in not trying!