Why you shouldn't be Trying | Remove the word TRY | By Sawan Kumar - The Best Motivational Speaker

If you want to stop trying start doing and finally close the gap between intention and outcome, the fix is linguistic before it is behavioural — the word try is the escape hatch your brain uses to fail without shame. Remove it, and your standards quietly rise.

Direct Answer: The word try programs your mind for a soft commitment with a built-in exit. Replace every "I'll try" with "I will" or "I won't," attach a deadline and a measurable outcome, and your follow-through rate climbs sharply because there is no longer a psychologically acceptable middle ground called effort-without-result.

Why the Word "Try" Sabotages You

Language is not decoration. It is the operating system your subconscious runs on. When you say "I'll try to wake up at 5 a.m.," you have already given yourself permission to fail, because trying — by definition — does not require succeeding. As a Chartered Accountant who has trained more than 79,000 students across 74+ courses, I have watched the same pattern destroy ambitious people for years: smart, capable operators who keep trying to launch the course, trying to close the deal, trying to ship the product. None of them are lazy. They are linguistically pre-committed to mediocrity.

Yoda said it best — "Do, or do not. There is no try." That line is not motivational fluff. It is a behavioural science principle wrapped in eight words.

The Hidden Cost of Trying in Real Estate and Business

In real estate especially, the cost of "try" is brutal because the deal cycle is long and the commissions are large. Consider the math:

• An agent who tries to make 20 cold calls a day averages 12.
• 12 calls a day = 240 calls a month vs. a committed 440 calls.
• At a 1.5% conversion to viewing, that is 3 viewings vs. 6 viewings.
• At a 25% close rate on viewings, that is 0.75 deals vs. 1.5 deals a month.
• Over 12 months, the "trier" lost 9 deals — at an average AED 30,000 commission, that is AED 270,000 in evaporated income.

The word try cost a quarter of a million dirhams. Not the market. Not the manager. The vocabulary.

The Three-Step Language Reset

Step 1: Audit Your Speech for 48 Hours

Carry your phone and dictate every sentence you say that contains "try," "maybe," "hopefully," or "I'll see." Most of my coaching clients log 30 to 60 instances in two days. Awareness alone reduces the count by half.

Step 2: Replace With Binary Statements

Every "I'll try to X" becomes either "I will X by [date]" or "I will not X." There is no third option. "I'll try to publish the listing today" becomes "I will publish the listing by 6 p.m. today" — or "I am not publishing the listing today, I'm publishing it Tuesday at 10 a.m." Both are honest. "Try" is not.

Step 3: Attach a Public Consequence

Tell one person — your spouse, business partner, WhatsApp accountability group — the binary commitment. Public commitments lift completion rates by roughly 65% according to behavioural research from the American Society of Training and Development. Privacy is where "try" hides.

What Replaces Trying: The DO Framework

I teach a simple framework I call DO: Decide, Operate.

• Decide: Pick one outcome with a deadline. Not three. One. "I will list 5 properties on Property Finder by Friday 5 p.m."
• Operate: Block calendar time. Remove competing inputs. Execute until done. No status updates, no "how it's going" conversations — only "done" or "not done."

This is the same operating discipline used by elite real estate brokers in Dubai who consistently clear AED 1M+ in annual commissions while their peers report being "busy."

The Identity Shift Behind the Language

Here is what most motivational content misses: removing "try" is not about willpower. It is about identity. A person who tries to be a top broker is not a top broker. A person who is a top broker, on the other hand, behaves like one whether they feel motivated or not.

Direct Answer: Identity-based language ($"I am the kind of person who closes 2 deals a month") outperforms outcome-based language ("I will try to close 2 deals") because identity is non-negotiable. You don't try to brush your teeth — you brush them because that's who you are. Top performers apply the same logic to client follow-ups, prospecting, and content output.

Common Objections (and Why They're Wrong)

• "But what if I genuinely can't?" Then say "I won't" instead of "I'll try." Honesty creates room for renegotiation. "Try" creates room for excuses.
• "Isn't this just semantics?" Semantics drive behaviour. Ask any negotiator, lawyer, or copywriter. The words you choose pre-commit your nervous system.
• "What if I fail after committing?" You will fail less often, and when you do, you will learn faster because the failure is visible and specific instead of fuzzy and self-forgiving.

A 7-Day Challenge to Kill the Word

For the next seven days, every time the word try leaves your mouth, you owe AED 50 to a charity you dislike. I have run this exact challenge with coaching clients in Dubai — by day three, the word disappears. By day seven, the underlying behaviour has shifted. People close deals, ship products, and have hard conversations they had been postponing for months.

You will stop trying start doing the moment the word becomes financially painful to use. Pick the charity, set the rule, and start tomorrow at 6 a.m. — not when you feel ready.