"I'll try" can become a halfhearted promise of follow-through rather than decisive action. The d.school's academic director Bernie Roth demonstrates this idea with a brief exercise that his students say delivers a lasting messag.e

He holds a waterbottle and asks them to try to take it from him. Facing gray-haired Bernie, a fifty-year veteran of the Stanford Design Program, students usually hesitate as they try to grab it from him. THeir initial efforts yield nothing. His grasp just grows more ironclad as the strapping twenty-year-olds and powerful CEOs try to wrestle the bottle away from the octogenarian.

Bernie then reframes the exercise. He says to stop trying and just do it—take it from him. The next person strides forward and successfully wrenches the bottle away. What changed? As Bernie explains it, a subtle excuse lies in the idea of "trying." It's as if today is for attempts, and the real action will happen at some vague future moment. You have to be focused on getting it done now.

Creative Confidence p.120-121 by David and Tom Kelly

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Having been assigned my first task in my new job, I spent the weekend trying to come up with solutions with limited knowledge and expertise. I only tried. After reading this passage on the Monday following the weekend, I realized that my attempts of trying to complete the task was an excuse to not complete the task to the best of my abilities. It was like when a teacher asks for a rough draft instead of a final draft and so I "try" to write a rough draft but instead submitting a poor draft that rightfully get poor feedback. I should always write a final draft with the understanding that I will need to edit them. Only then, will my move forward and iterate meaningfully. In retrospect, my solutions brainstormed over the weekend were vague and unactionable.

In the future, don't try. Just do and get feedback on your best work. Saying "I will try" is equivalent to I will not bring in my best work.

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