Trial & Progress - Grasshopper

I believe we’re all familiar with the phrase “trial and error.” Upon some reflection, it seems the outcome is slanted towards error. I’m wondering if a shift in language can lead to more progress.

It seems we’re weened on “trial and error.” I think of the story of Robert Bruce I heard in elementary school. As the tale goes, he sees a spider weaving his web, but it falls down. The spider attempts to weave again with the same result. Many tries later it finally spins a web. 

After hearing many stories similar to that one, our mind gets imbued with the directive phrase, “try, try, again.” The implication is we’re going to be faced with a number of errors before reaching success.

I have no quibble with that logic, only the way in which it’s presented, namely, “trial and error.”

I think of Thomas Edison. When an experiment didn’t work, he didn’t look on it as a failure, just a trip down a side road on his pathway to progress. Edison once said, “I have not failed 10,000 times, I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”

Many of us have come to believe that error is failure which causes us to give up much too soon in the process. After all, who wants to be a failure?

I propose we put a new phrase in our lexicon: “trial and progress.”

Try it on for size. It leaves you in a different mindset than “trial and error.”

It reminds me of a story motivation guru Tony Robbins told many years ago. He said to think of sales as getting paid by the “noes.” The logic went like this: you call on 20 people a day and get 2 yeses and 18 noes. That pattern replicates itself day after day. So, your attitude becomes get people to hurry up and say, “no” so you can get to the “yes” person quicker.

“Trial and progress” has more optimism attached to it. It broadens the playing field in your mind so you can see more options and more opportunities, rather than focusing on failure.

I invite you to give “trial and progress” a mental spin to have more of a chance of getting a win.

All the best,