Have you ever noticed that it’s not really very “cool” to try hard?

It starts sometime shortly before junior high, when the socially savvy kids start to realize that much of the control the adult authority figures insist on maintaining is an illusion dependent on their cooperation.

They want to show that they have this awareness by not trying too hard to succeed in things that are traditionally encouraged by authority figures.

Many socially savvy kids have high enough self-esteem and love for their parents to where they do not feel a need to become cynical for the sake of showing off to their peers.

It’s really a power thing.

When you shuffle your feet on the way up to the blackboard, acting like you are so bored you are barely awake, you are trying to claim a position of power by sending the message that no adult is going to own your will.

It’s sad but true that remnants of this instinct stick with many of us into adulthood.

One sad version I often notice is men (tough-guy mentality men) spitting on the ground when another man they don’t know shows up on the scene.

They probably don’t even know why they do it.  It’s sort of an instinct, like dogs urinating on a shrub to mark their territory.

If a man is leaning against his truck outside a grocery store, waiting for his wife to come out with the groceries, he may get an uncomfortable sensation of anxiety about the pecking order as I walk past him.

So he spits on the tarmac.

He’s unconscious of the reason for his impulse to do so, but the message his brain is sending out to others is, “I’m not going to stand to attention and be respectful as you walk by.  I’m so bored about you being here that I will do something as informal as spitting on the ground.  You see, you don’t threaten me so I don’t need to act polite.”

I’ve noticed it happens to me a lot more when I’m wearing either a tank-top or a nice shirt and tie.  Both outfits raise the feeling of threat regarding pecking-order issues.

Before you get too excited about bashing the guys I just described, look inside to see if you recognize any remnant of a similar but more deadly mutation of the “Don’t try too hard,” mentality in your own psyche.

You’ll recognize it in the thoughts below:

I love this new plan for starting my online business.  I could make a bunch of extra money and do some really cool stuff for my family.

But I better not tell my friends I’m doing it.  What if I fail and they make fun of me.

If this doesn’t work out, I want to keep trying until I succeed, but I don’t want them to know how hard I’m working at trying to be a success.

What do you see in these thoughts?

I see the beginnings of weakness.

The weakness that is so deadly to your dreams is the fear of trying hard while others watch.  It’s not as cool when you have “arrived” financially if you did so by your own sweat and tears instead of with ease as you applied your genius.

Or is it?

I would contend that if you want to join the ranks of truly fantastic people who have accomplished incredible feats of self-mastery and success, you need to get really comfortable with other people seeing you try hard, even if they see you try hard again and again before you finally succeed.

This is the part of the article where I begin telling you about how many wealthy entrepreneurs there are who insist that their success only came because they persisted beyond their initial failures.

I then go into this thing about how you really need to reframe failure as nothing more than the next step toward your eventual success.

But you know all that, so I’ll just leave you with this thought.

Try hard, even if someone is watching.

-Dr. Todd Snyder