If at first you don't succeed, try try again. We have had that adage beaten into our heads for our entire lives. But what if "trying" is what keeps us from success?
That's the cycle Carla Ondrasik wants to break in all of us. Her new book, Stop Trying: The Life-Transforming Power of Trying Less and Doing More, looks at the neuroscience of "trying," and how it traps us in inaction and indecision. Trying becomes a substitute for doing, Carla explains, and not just in careers but in all aspects of our lives. Carla brings some real-world examples in her book and in our delightful conversation in a podcast recorded yesterday.
In our podcast, Carla talks about her own life story and how that oriented her to action rather than indecision, and how she could see the traps that others set for themselves in "trying." Her success in the music business reinforced those lessons and showed her that too many people fail to achieve success not from a lack of talent and desire, but from faulty approaches to goals and tasks. These cycles turn into self-sabotage, are based on fears of failure as well as fears of success, and they force us into procrastination and esteem-damaging internal dialogues. Carla also discusses how this thinking impacts our physical health, both directly and indirectly, and derails relationships.
The book also has solid psychology and neuroscience as a basis. Carla explains the Zeigarnik Effect, in which our minds tend to obsess more over incomplete tasks and goals than on the action needed to complete them. Action frees our brain and elevates dopamine responses, while inaction and "trying" limit both. By walking through this book and its fun exercises, we can rewire our responses to avoid "trying" and skip right to "doing," both in our professional and personal lives.
Carla covers it all, how it applied in her life, and how we can apply it to ours. Here are a couple of lightly edited excerpts from the interview:
ED: I've known people who are afraid of success and who fall back into the, well, I'm trying to do this. I'm trying to do that sort of thing as sort of a defensive mechanism that prevents them from actually risking and risking failure. It's easier to not try, I guess you would say, than it is to do and fail and deal with the failure. At least I think that that's the defense mechanism that we're talking about.
CARLA: It's in the book, actually. I dealt with this. So one of the reasons we try is because we are afraid of failure. Perfectionists, they have a hard time getting going and waiting for the right, most perfect thing. So they tend to try rather than jump in because they're afraid of failure. You can also be afraid of success. It's a whole other reason why you wouldn't jump into doing.
Look, I've had a huge career. I'm 62 years old this year. I was so thinking, wow, I'm going to put this book out. I had to put this book out. I had to share this message with everybody. I put a name to what makes you successful. I really honed it in, and I'm so proud of it. But I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to start doing social media. I'm going to have to start traveling and speaking. I am a behind-the-scenes person. I'm the star maker.
But if this book goes, I'm going to be out front, terrified of the success. But you know what, my motivation, I think that's another key reason that we follow through and do something, is if we have a strong motivation to share whatever it is that we want to do or achieve what we want to achieve. So 100% I'm a victim of the fear of success syndrome as well.
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ED: Let's talk about the neuroscience behind this because your book talks about this way that the it's kind of like rewiring the brain a little bit right is what is what you're talking about in this book, but what is it in the in the brain that is happening in try mode? What is happening in the brain when you're in action mode? I know the book gets into this, I just haven't gotten to that part of the book yet.
CARLA: Okay, so when you say I'm going to try to do anything, your brain is listening, and it's physically, it lights up, they have images, you can Google an image of the brain, when it's trying. And it's on a very -- it's a low level lid. You've got, you know, dopamine and serotonin and adrenaline and all that going on. It's on a very low level. It's like you're in neutral. Okay, you're not in park anymore.
Now you're in neutral. So it's like not really going anywhere, but the motor's running. When you say I'm doing this, your brain knows that there's going to be action forthcoming, and it lights up really bright. And you get big hits of dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, all those feel-good endorphins, your brain listens, and it's physically going to respond differently to what you tell it to do. It's amazing.
It's incredible.
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Carla and I discuss a lot more, including her husband, who I hear is a singer and a shopping-cart maker of some repute. Yoda gets a couple of mentions -- you knew it was coming -- and so do Carla's stories, wit, and charm. It's a delightful conversation, and like me, you'll have made a new friend by the end of it.
The book Stop Trying: The Life-Transforming Power of Trying Less and Doing More is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Both sites offer e-book options, and an Audible version will come within the month, too. Carla will have a book tour starting soon in the southwest US, so keep watching her website for more info on that. Carla's also on X/Twitter now, so follow there as well to keep up with the latest on the book and Carla's new successes.
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