Growing up, I always had that mentality that if you were doing something big, you had to get it on your first try.

Because if you failed, it probably wasn’t meant to be.

Especially if you’re doing something that took months or even years to attempt, it’s probably just out of your scope.

And it doesn’t help when you have friends or family breathing down your neck waiting to see if you succeed. And it always seems like the second you fail, they’re ready to say “At least you tried,” or “It was a good attempt.”

Not that they didn’t believe in you in the first place. But trying two, three, or four times just isn’t something people expect us to do. If we fail once, it’s time to move onto the next thing. That’s the motto a lot of people live by nowadays.

But there’s all kinds of instances where people have defied the odds not on their first try, but on their third or fifth.

David Goggins for example didn’t break the world pull-up record until his third attempt. Despite the constant criticism about how he didn’t have the right build or the correct form, he kept trying this “impossible challenge” when only a few people believed in him. It took him a few tries, but he eventually defied the odds.

Another one I love to look back on is Diana Nyad who swam from Cuba to Florida at 64 years old without a shark cage.

This lady was a beast.

The swim covered nearly 110 miles and took her more than 53 hours to complete. But as you can probably guess, this wasn’t her first attempt.

Before this, she had tried four other times but had to quit because of bad weather, jellyfish, poor currents, and exhaustion. Even though all she could hear were people telling her she couldn’t do it, she persisted. She kept going out into the water and swam until she finished the job.

What’s fascinating about these people is that these aren’t individuals who made a business or wrote a book and got successful on their hundredth try. As impressive as that is, these are figures who did something that is practically labeled as ‘physically impossible.’ And I think it’s that very label that made them want to do it in the first place.

So don’t listen to the naysayers whenever you’re doing something that seems impossible to them, or even sometimes to you.

You might fail at times, but as long as you’re willing to keep trying, it just means you’re halfway there.

Until next time,
Isaiah Taylor

Dive Deeper

What I’m Currently Reading - I’m still in the middle of reading Waller R. Newell’s book What Is A Man? A 800-page collection of 3,000 years of wisdom on the art of manly virtue.

Quote Of The Week - “You are under no obligation to remain the version of yourself that other people are comfortable with.” —Unknown