The phrase “I’m trying” has become very irksome to me lately.

There’s just something about it that lacks power, strength—forward movement. To say “I’m trying” when someone compliments you on a job well done, or when you’re in the midst of working through a creative process or a difficult project, seems to deny the momentum of what’s actually happening. There really is no such thing as trying, because when you’re trying, what you’re really doing is just that…doing.

Change up the story—switch out those words. See how “doing” feels rolling off your tongue. Sit with it for a while at the base of your brain. Let is resonate and permeate through your thought process, and then let it infuse your actions.

Feel the difference between “trying” and “doing.” When you’re trying, you’re never quite there. You deny yourself the power of the moment, the magic in creation. It almost feels like a cop-out when you really think about it, doesn’t it?

To say you’re trying is to feel like the desired destination is just a dream—that it is so far removed from your present that you speak about it in any actual sense or present tense makes it too real.

“The point of life is not to get anywhere—it is to notice that you are, and have always been, already there. You are always and forever in the moment of pure creation. The point of life therefore is to create—who and what you are, and then to experience that.”

~ Neale Donald Walsch

And what’s wrong with real? What’s wrong with giving yourself credit for what you’re doing right here, right now? In this real, present moment, the only moment that truly exists?

There’s a big source of tension around “trying,” and I think it boils down to reclaiming our sense of self, our sense of confidence and belief in what we’re truly capable of. Confronting the fact that most of us actually fear success is the first step in realizing and moving towards our highest potentials. “Doing” something to elevate ourselves to that next level means we’re moving away from everything that we’ve known to become something new, something unknown, something we can’t possibly plan or 100 percent prepare for.

Well, we’re not supposed to be prepared for everything. That’s what life is all about. We learn through our attempts, our mistakes, our “doing.”

“Think with me here…everybody wants to be on the mountaintop, but if you’ll remember, mountaintops are rocky and cold. There is no growth on the top of a mountain. Sure, the view is great, but what’s a view for? A view just gives us a glimpse of our next destination—our next target. But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life’s next peak.”

~ Andy Andrews, The Noticer

We’re all journey(wo)men on this plane, and we’re all here for a special purpose, whether we’ve reached that peak or valley of revelation or not. It will come—it always does. There will always be bigger, more challenging summits to traverse, ravines to navigate, and cold, blistering nights to bar ourselves against. But these experiences teach us not only the necessary lessons of survival; they provide us with the tools to squeeze blood from a stone, or chisel a diamond out of the fortified mountainside. Taking risks, going out on a questionable limb and walking courageously into the darkness doesn’t always ensure the outcomes we’re seeking; on the contrary, they almost always produce even better, more incredible outcomes than we could have ever imagined.

And none of those peaks can be climbed without doing something about getting there. You want an incredible view—you want movement and that next amazing adventure in your life?

Then do something about it.

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Ed: Brianna Bemel