Don't Try Too Hard!

Ever read Catcher in the Rye?

The main character—Holden Caulfield—is a cynical, nihilistic kid. On the surface, he seems pretty tough, too.

Holden calls the kids who try hard in school phonies. They’re all playing some kind of silly game that Holden is way too cool to play. Meanwhile, his mediocre school performance and disruptive behavior are becoming too much for school officials, so they ultimately expel him.

Author JD Salinger gradually makes it apparent that Holden’s behavior is an elaborate defense mechanism, largely designed to protect his ego from failure. If you don't really put forth your best effort, he reasons, you can't possibly truly be embarrassed.

Being afraid of failure is bad enough. It has caused indecision at critical moments, paralyzing the powerful. Fear of failure has also caused some awful decision making, like times when something even worse came true.

The specific type of fear that Salinger describes is even more sinister, and it can afflict anyone. You’re not paralyzed by indecision or afraid to be judged for making a guess, like the fears world leaders face every day. Instead, you simply don’t put forth your best effort at anything.

This gives your ego an automatic way out, juuuuuust in case.

By avoiding trying hard for an extended period of time—say during your middle and high school years, as many kids live—you can form lifetime habits that virtually guarantee career and life mediocrity.

Some of the things that might run through a kid’s head while they’re experiencing this fear:

• Sure, the kids who got As and Bs on that test tried really hard, but I barely tried at all and I got a C

• If I goof around and show off while I’m doing this sport, other kids will know I’m not trying 100%, so if I fail, I can blame it on that

• Instead of really trying to draw that shape in art class, I’ll make something that undermines the school or system in some clever way

Kids become adults, and the mindset that drives this habit is well formed by the time people enter the workforce. I’ve seen much more cynicism than genuine effort out there, and I know I’m not alone in this observation.

Is there any remedy to this?

Oh, you bet. There are several I’ve found myself using over the years.

One way is to reframe how you see your fellow students, coworkers, or peers. If you’re concerned that they might think something you do or create isn’t any good, you might be deterred from trying too hard, giving yourself that exit hatch.

Ask yourself what it is you’re really trying to run away from. Is it that you’re worried people will think you’re not smart or cool based on your work? If that’s the case, ask yourself another question: have I given them any reason to think I’m smart or cool thus far? If not, maybe this is your chance to try.

Clearly, punk rock helped with this reframing in my own life. By viewing the situation through a more subversive lens, I was able to see more clearly that worrying about whether others thought I was cool was no reason not to try hard.

Competing in judo and jiu jitsu also helped a ton. By going out there regularly, I was able to face down some fears of failure and try my best, although I’ll admit that it took several years before I was able to consider myself an athlete, so it took time to take myself seriously.

Saying, “screw what other people think!” is great in theory, but it might not get you all the way there. So, reinforce this by remembering the reason you’re not trying hard in the first place: because there’s some chance people will think your work sucks.

Yeah, there’s a chance that someone won’t like what you’ve done, and they might even make fun of you for it. If that happens, see the above step one.

However, there’s also a chance that nobody will think your work is lousy. In fact, if you try hard, you might even be one of the few people with the courage to actually put their egos on the line, and this might give you a competitive advantage over those who are afraid to try hard.

A good way to work up to this is to practice regularly. Here on Substack, I have a chance to say things every day. This is an incredible experience for me, because I can put everything I have into making something awesome… and then move on with my day. I know I’ll try again tomorrow, even if today’s effort didn’t produce the fruit I was hoping for.

People tell me things I’ve missed here and there, or make observations I’ve never considered. A funny thing happens when I check the comments, though: I enjoy myself. Through dialogue, I learn even more about the thing I want to think about.

With all of my best endeavors, I don’t use a lack of effort as my escape hatch, but I do have those little “outs” I use, just in case something isn’t well received by the public. One of those outs is that I don’t have to agree with public sentiment all the time.

Another escape is that I don’t have to be right about everything (or even most things, really—it’s more of a spectrum). It’s okay for my ego to mess up, especially since I know I can learn from the mistake and do better the very next day.

How about you? Do you have the ability to let things go, to put your work out there? Do you find yourself too similar to Holden for comfort, or have you been able to figure out your own ways to deal with this kind of fear?