Faith

Imagine the transformative power of a ‘can do’ attitude.

Actions, Choices, Faith, Knowledge
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Try­ing CAN BE So-o‑o NOT DOING!

 I was not always a ‘Can Do’ type.  Ear­ly in my youth I was an “I’ll try” per­son.  As a teen, my father used to say me, “When you work for some­one, always do what you are told and always do your very best.”  Even with that good advice I did not take that as a ‘can do’’’ advice from my par­ents.  I was blessed to have teach­ers through­out my school years, and then employ­ers dur­ing my teen years that took an inter­est in me and offered sin­cere guid­ance con­cern­ing tak­ing instruc­tions and orders from supe­ri­ors.  Then, while in the USAF I would dare not say “I’ll Try.”  Dur­ing basic train­ing and then for four years it was “can do” or else.

Of all the lessons I had as a young man, the one I remem­ber most, came from Mr. Capp Tin­gley, own­er man­ag­er of a super­mar­ket. I had worked for him a cou­ple months when one day he told me to do some­thing, and I replied, “I’ll try.”  His response was, “Did you say you’ll try? Jim, come with me.” As he led me to his office I thought, oh, he is going to fire me.  In the office he said, “Sit down.  Where did you learn to try?”  Before I could say a word he dropped a pen­cil on the floor in front of me.  I looked at it and at him think­ing, should I pick it up?  “Now Jim I want you to try to pick­up that pen­cil, don’t pick it up, just try to pick it up.”  I sat there dumb found­ed, not know­ing what he meant, so I did noth­ing.  He said, “Go ahead now try to pick up the pen­cil, but don’t because that would be doing, not try­ing.” Before I could do any­thing he then bent over and picked up the pen­cil, say­ing “Now this is doing.  This is a ‘can do’ atti­tude.”  I felt great relief to see him smil­ing as he said, “Now go out there and do what I told you to do.  Don’t try, Do it with a can do atti­tude!  From now on I want to see your ‘can do’ atti­tude.”  After that for me it is was, “Yes sir, I can do that.”  A les­son I have nev­er for­got­ten.

With that les­son for­ev­er with me I resist­ed the “I’ll try” respons­es and, with the help of oth­er men­tors, I slow­ly devel­oped a sol­id ‘can do’ atti­tude. What I did not real­ize dur­ing my ear­ly years is that it takes a cer­tain self image mind set to accom­plish a ‘can do atti­tude’ to replace the old ver­bal respons­es of “I’ll try” with “I can do that.”  The “I’ll try” habit can become your “I can do” habit.   In his book, Psy­cho-Cyber­net­ics, the famous plas­tic sur­geon, Maxwell Maltz wrote, “To change a habit, make a con­scious deci­sion, then act out the new behav­ior.”  It is my belief that every achieve­ment begins in the mind.  Have faith, believe you can, and you can!

I learned that for some it was not real­ly an atti­tude so much as it was a habit of using the word improp­er­ly.  But for many it was a reflec­tion of their lack of con­fi­dence. Dur­ing my many years in real estate devel­op­ment and hous­ing con­struc­tion I often had dozens of peo­ple work­ing on a project.  I encoun­tered employ­ees who, giv­en orders to do some­thing, would respond, ‘I will try.’  Work­ing this many peo­ple I grew more and more aware of the ‘I’ll try’ peo­ple; and many times their ‘I’ll try’ respons­es told me that the per­son would ‘make an attempt’ but was not at all con­fi­dent and like­ly inex­pe­ri­enced. Of course, the word ‘try’ can be used prop­er­ly such as when the mean­ing would be ‘to attempt’ or to test out some­thing of which you are not at all sure of.

Many times since I have often won­dered what God had to say about this strange ‘I’ll try’ atti­tude.  So I have spent some time in the Bible, look­ing. God had a lot to say about the heart of man and how what is in it will come out the mouth.

A good man out of the good trea­sure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil trea­sure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abun­dance of the heart his mouth speaketh.   Luke 6:45.

While I did not find any direct word­ing in the bible deal­ing with ‘try or I’ll try’; I also did NOT find any instances of God’s speak­ing or of Jesus speak­ing in such a neg­a­tive way.  You will find some fol­low­ers who were neg­a­tive, but God always spoke pos­i­tive­ly before He did, and Jesus always spoke pos­i­tive­ly.  NEVER DID HE SAY “TRY” as He taught and healed dur­ing his earth­ly min­istry. He nev­er told any­one to “try” to be healed.  Jesus used such words and phras­es as your faith has healed you, be healed, Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.  Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.  As you believe, do you believe? and, if you believe.  You can find many more in the New Tes­ta­ment.

It appears to me that to devel­op the suc­cess­ful ‘can do’ atti­tude one must think suc­cess.   Prop­er seeds plant­ed in the heart will improve one’s self image to great­ly improve life’s jour­ney.

Here are a few KJV Ref­er­ences:

Math­ew 8:8

Mark 5:34

John 5:8

Math­ew 8:13

Math­ew 21:22

Proverbs 7:1

And many more of God and Jesus’ pos­i­tive work in the Bible, but no try­ing, just doing.

 

Jim Comley

View posts by Jim Comley

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