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If At First You Don’t Succeed…
Pause, reflect, and consider before you try again.
Probably my all-time favorite quote is from Yoda:
“Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”
What this means is not that you shouldn’t try something, but rather that the energy you give to that something must be whole-hearted. If you approach the thing you plan to “try” with resignation, defeat, and no expectation of making it happen, why bother? But if, instead, you approach the thing you plan to “do” with tenacity, optimism, and potential for making it happen, do it. That’s the meaning of Yoda’s (in)famous quote.
There is, however, another important quote to consider here. Misattributed to Albert Einstein, the relevance of Rita Mae Brown’s quote is still important:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Doing something once and then giving up is often defeatist and denies room for change, improvement, or alternatives. Few things just work on the first pass, so trying more than once can be important.
However, the question is that of variables. Which is what the quote alluded to in the title of this article addresses:
