HOW TO FAIL BY TRYING TOO HARD

Did you know that the way you try can cause you to fail? It can. Lots of people, and I mean lots of people, fail not because they aren’t trying, but precisely because they are. They fail because they are trying too hard. That’s right, they are trying too hard. Here’s an example from baseball.

“In baseball, Mel Wearing, a slugger for the Rochester Red Wings, is a powerful guy and a hotshot hitter. When he first started on the team, people were expecting him to hit a home run every time he stepped to the plate. The problem was the he was also expecting it of himself. According to his own account, when he joined the Red Wings he set out to impress people—to knock it out of the park time after time. He gripped the bat too tightly and swung too hard, he said. At the beginning of each season he would bear down on himself. He tried to use his power to do the job, but it didn’t work. His performance was disappointing, and he felt bad about himself.”