Stop Trying Harder, Start Trying Warmer

All of us know about trying harder. We’ve been taught to believe that if your life doesn’t look the way you want, you probably need to try harder!

But today I want to offer you the idea that instead of being harder and tougher on ourselves in order to create what we want in our lives, what we really need to do is to be warmer with ourselves.

Instead of criticism and impatience with our efforts, what is really going to help us grow and become is learning and practicing in an environment of encouragement, understanding, and love.

Join me on the podcast today where I’ll tell you all about the power of trying warmer instead of harder. Trying warmer isn’t about indulging ourselves or our excuses—it’s about making sure we have the support we need to try and keep on trying until we get what we want.

Transcript 

Welcome to the 100% Awesome podcast with April Price. You might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thoughts you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome.

Hello podcast universe, welcome to episode 251 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price and I am so happy to have you here today. I am so happy to be here with you. How are things? How are things in your life? How is your year going? How's your winter going? Is it winter where you are? I feel like it's been not much of a winter. My pool is already heating up, so I'm just wondering how you are out there.

How are you feeling? I hope that you are doing well. I hope that you're feeling good. Let's get into the episode today. I've got a fun new idea for you. Today we're going to be talking about trying and trying in a way that maybe you haven't ever tried before. And I know that all of us have heard about trying harder, right? Like our whole lives. We've heard about trying harder. And I think I spent most of my life thinking I just needed to do that. I just needed to try harder and be better and and just, like, get my stuff together by trying harder.

But today we're going to set down the idea of trying harder. And I want to offer you the idea of trying warmer. What do I mean by that? By trying warmer. The idea is that, like when we aren't getting the results we want or we aren't creating the life we want, if we aren't, you know, reaching our goals or doing the things that we say we want to do and we aren't showing up in our lives as the person that we want to be. We almost always think it's because we aren't trying hard enough, because we aren't working at it hard enough, and that we just need to try harder. But today I really want to offer you the idea that instead of being harder and tougher on ourselves, what we really need to do is to be warmer with ourselves, right? Instead of giving ourselves the cold shoulder and rejecting ourselves and icing ourselves out and being critical of ourselves until we shape up and do it better.

Instead of that, what I'm suggesting is that we turn towards ourself. That we embrace ourselves and try to understand ourselves and show more encouragement and appreciation towards ourselves, and use warmth as the change agent. To use warmth to help ourselves and motivate ourselves and encourage ourselves to change and grow and become in all the ways that we want to. So you might be skeptical and you might think this is dumb or indulgent, as I said.

Or you might think, well, this is never going to work on somebody like me, but I just want you to give it a chance. Give me a chance to sell you on this idea today. The idea of trying warmer instead of harder. So I'm going to draw on a recent experience I had that I think really demonstrates this really well, and I hope that it will help you as you try to do things in your life, whether you are trying to do something new, or whether you are just trying again, or whether like you've almost given up because you feel like you've tried everything and it's not gonna work and you're never going to be able to change.

Like, I want to give you a new way to think about trying to create these things in your life. And I think that the things that I learned through this experience will give you a new perspective on trying and help you see how trying warmer is so much better than trying harder. Okay, so a few weeks ago I went to Hawaii with my husband and I took my first surf lessons. So I think I told you this year that I, I'm turning 50, and one of my goals this year is to learn to surf.

And I'm doing this just for the fun of it. Like just because I want to, just because it looks fun. It sounds fun. It's like just something that I've always wanted to, you know, try and maybe because it feels like so out of the ordinary for a 50 year old woman living in the desert or like in a landlocked state, like there are no there are no waves near me. But when I think about all the things that I want to try while I'm here in my human body, this is one of them, right? Like, I don't want to get to the other side and be like, yeah, I had a body and I could have had that experience.

Uh, but I missed that one, right? This is one that I don't want to miss out on. It would feel like such a loss to have, like, been a human and been in a body and not tried it, right? So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this. And so my husband was planning this trip to Hawaii and I was like, perfect, I want to take a surf lesson. And I actually ended up doing two lessons because I had so much fun in the first one, and it was so awesome. But the first thing that you should know is that I was scared, all right.

So I wanted to learn to surf and I like was really intentional about it. I was like, yeah. And I told my husband, like, whatever excursions you're planning is fine with me, but I definitely want to do a surf lesson. So I had this lesson scheduled for a Monday morning, but because of like, the waves and the swells that were coming in to Hawaii later that day and that week, we actually had to reschedule it for the very first lesson of the day at 7 a.m., and that meant that we had to get up super, super early to drive.

We were like an hour away from the beach where I was doing the lessons and drive in the dark, and it was raining, and the whole time there, my brain was trying to talk me out of it, and it just kept saying like, this is so dumb, why are we doing this? Right? And like, let's reschedule or let's just cancel or like, why did we even set this up in the first place? So super early. Like, this is stupid, right? We should just bag it. It's dark, it's raining. It's going to be cold.

Like, I don't want to do this. And it just kept really protesting the fact that we were doing this. Like, I just felt all this resistance inside of me and my brain kept coming up with a million excuses of why we shouldn't be doing it. And as I sat in the car driving to that lesson I like just started to be really curious about this resistance inside of me and all this back pedaling and all these excuses, right? Because I was doing something that I supposedly wanted to do. And yet in that moment, when the moment came to actually do it, like it felt like no part of me wanted to do it, I was just like.

Like no part of me wants to go and do this thing right. And I think a lot of our goals and dreams, or the things that we want to try in our life, I think they feel like this, right? We want something. We want to try it. We want to have that experience. But then the moment of execution comes. And where does that wanting part go? It's just like leaves the building, right? And suddenly, like, it's time to do the thing that we said we really wanted to do and no part of us wants to do it. You know, it's no different. Like, for example, in my marathon training, like I want to do this thing, I want to have this race, I want to do this experience with my family. And yet, like every morning when it's time to do the run, when it's time to like, do the preparation, like no part of me wants to do that, right? Like zero part of me wants to do that. My brain is just like, why did we sign up for this? We don't even like running. Why are we doing this? And I know that I'm not the only one that this happens to like, right? Like this is the first place where our dreams go to die is like, we we all have these things we want to try.

And then like the moment of practice or the moment of execution comes and like that part of us is gone, right? And so this is the first thing that you got to know is that you should decide what you want with your feelings, right? Like you should listen to your desires to decide what you want, but then you should execute with your decision and not with your feelings. Okay, so we decide with our feelings, right? We decide with our desire, but then we execute with our decision.

In other words, use your feelings to find your desires, to find what you really want, but then never use or rely on your feelings to determine whether or not you take action. Your action needs to flow from the decision and not your feelings in that moment, right? So there I was, in the car on the way to the beach, and instead of like backing out or being frustrated with myself that I have this resistance sort of being like hard on myself.

Instead, I just got curious and I asked myself, what are you scared of? And this is the first step of meeting yourself with warmth. Like instead of judging yourself for being scared, or feeling dread, or for not wanting to. Instead of like saying like, oh yeah, this is what you always do. You say you want these things and then you always back out, right? Like instead of being mean to yourself in that moment and being cold to yourself, you want to just start by warmly accepting where you are and what you're feeling so that you can be curious about it.

So I'm like, there in the car. I'm like, it's totally okay to be scared. In fact, I was like, where am I feeling scared? Like, I scan my body and I notice that I'm scared in my belly and I'm scared of my fingertips and I can feel that vibration there. Right? And then I ask myself, what are you scared of? And instead of trying not to be scared or not to feel dread, not to feel overwhelmed or inadequate or intimidated, I can just let myself be scared, let myself be where I'm at trying with warmth means I am warmly welcoming.

Whatever emotion is coming up for me, whatever resistance I feel right. And on that morning, what I was feeling was scared. And I was scared when I asked myself, why? Why are you scared? It was like, oh, I'm scared of failing. I'm scared of looking stupid. I'm scared of finding out that I'm not actually capable of achieving this goal. I'm scared of, like, not even being able to get out of the water onto the board. Right? And I'm even scared that I set a goal that I thought I could do, and it's completely outside of my capacity. I never should have said it, and I'm just scared of looking stupid about even setting the goal, right? And so it's just like in that moment I can feel scared and I can ask myself why, and then I can meet that answer also with warmth instead of being like, that's stupid, don't be scared, right? I just ask myself again, well, what would be the worst part of failing? Like, if we fail, why is that so bad? And again, we're just like, curiously asking ourselves. And I figured out like, oh, I'm I would be scared of what I thought and I would be scared of what other people thought.

Like, for example, my surf instructor, they might think like, this is the worst student I've ever had. Like, is that okay? Right? Like, even if he decides, he or she decides to think that, right? I don't get a control that they're totally allowed to think that. And is it okay if they do? And then I can come back to my thoughts. What would I think if I fail? What are the critical thoughts I would have about myself for setting the goal, or for not being able to do it? What am I going to tell myself if I fail? And in that moment, then warmth is then a commitment about how I'm going to treat myself as I try this thing, how I'm going to think about myself as I try.

And I can just kind of stop for a minute and warmly acknowledge that, like, what I'm really scared of is my own judgment, and then I can decide, no, I'm going to meet myself here with warmth. I'm going to be proud of myself no matter what. I'm going to be proud of myself for trying. I'm going to be proud of myself for showing up and getting in the water. I'm going to be proud of myself for failing. I'm going to be proud of myself for doing it badly. I'm going to be proud of myself for trying. Right? Because I'm not actually scared of failing. I'm scared of the judgment. And while I can't control other people's judgment, like they're totally allowed to have that experience and judge me right, I do get to control my own judgment and warmth is the answer to that. And for the most of the things that you're trying to do in your life, the real problem is your own judgment. The real problem is what you're telling yourself about your failures and warmth is the answer to that, committing to treat yourself warmly no matter what. So when I say try warmer instead of try harder.

I'm not talking about being indulgent. I'm not talking about letting yourself off the hook. I'm not talking about quitting or not trying. Like, warmth isn't like, oh, you're scared okay you don't have to do it. Oh you're scared, okay, we'll cancel it. That's not warmth. Warmth is about meeting myself in that moment with love and curiosity. To see what the fear or the dread or the overwhelm is really about, and then encouraging myself and committing to the way that I'm going to treat myself. It's about like going with myself to that place of failure and then making a commitment to myself about how I'm going to, like, talk to myself and treat myself and view myself. Okay, so those are the first two lessons about trying warmer. First, you want to be really warmly curious about your resistance. You don't have to make it mean terrible things about you. You're just like, oh, there's a part of me that doesn't want to do this. There's a big part of me that doesn't want to do this. I wonder why and to just, like, warmly receive that part of you and and be curious about it and then figure out what you can do for yourself.

Like how do you be there for yourself warmly, so that you can overcome that resistance, so that you can face that fear so that you can feel those feelings and still move forward? Okay, so back to the lessons we get there. I meet my instructor like we spend some time outside the water, like practicing standing up on the board, and then we're. And then we're in the water. Right. And so I want you to kind of picture in your head what a first or second surf lesson is supposed to look like.

Like what is that going to look like. What are your expectations if you're going to go like do a surf lesson for the first time. Like what do you expect. Right. I think most of us probably expect to spend more time in the water than riding the board, right? Like I think most of us like expect to spend a lot of time falling and a lot of time failing. Right. And I think we expect to like end up in the water a lot, to have a lot of water up our nose. Right. Like and I think we expect to spend a lot of time trying and a lot of it not working.

Right. And that's exactly how it was for me. I spent a lot of time in the water. I spent a lot of time paddling, actually, right? Like paddling out to the waves and then trying to get up and trying to kneel and stand and balance and falling and then paddling back out again. I spent a lot of time paddling, but I want you to notice how being bad at surfing was totally part of my expectation. And this is really actually a big part of trying anything warmly is to look at your expectations. Like when I expect that I'm going to be bad at it and that's okay, then I never have to be mad or frustrated when I'm not good at it, right? I just get to keep trying like I'm supposed to be bad at it. This is my first blessed. Like, of course I'm bad at it. Like, let's go again, right when it's something like surfing or maybe like learning new language or learning to play the piano or something like that. Like whenever we're learning a new skill like that, we sort of have the expectation that, yeah, I'm not going to be great at it when I start.

I'm supposed to be bad. Like, that's part of the learning process. And so it's it's pretty easy to meet ourselves there exactly where we are, exactly where our skill level is in that process and to and to meet ourselves with warmth. But there are other things in our lives where our expectations are way higher than this, right? And our expectations, in fact, are so high that being warm about it feels a lot harder. Like, for example, like a lot of us think we should be good at parenting or good at loving others good at marriage, right? We think we should be good at managing money or taking care of our bodies.

Or like we just have these incredibly high expectations, right? And these thoughts that we're supposed to be good at it. Like they really get in our way of seeing ourselves with warmth. They get in the way of us being warm about our need to practice and learn and develop our skills in any of these areas. And I think a really big part of trying anything in your life and trying it warmly is to lower your expectations and to, in fact, start to expect failure.

Expect not being good at it and let that be okay, right? Doing it with warmth means not making ourselves wrong for our current skill level. So if I'm trying to be a good mom, for example. But I think I'm already supposed to be good at it, then every time I practice and fall off the board, quote unquote, then I'm going to be mad about that instead of just recognizing, like, that's just one more rep and seeing it with warmth and letting me try yet again.

So this week I was listening to a podcast and they were interviewing Harvey Lewis. And if you don't know, Harvey Lewis, he's an amazing long distance runner and he runs huge ultramarathons. And he recently set the world record for running the longest distance. He ran the Big's backyard marathon. It's a last man standing race where you just you run a four mile loop for as long as you can until the last man standing. And when he was doing this race, he set the record by running 450 miles.

Yeah, in one go. Like he didn't stop 450 miles was the distance that he ended up running. It took like four days where he didn't sleep right. And he ran 450 miles. I mean, I know I've said that like 450 times, but it's like it's like mind blowing, right? Anyway, as I was listening to this podcast of him do this like superhuman feat, he was talking about how he was never a good runner, and he was talking about how when he started running, that it took him five years to hit a five hour marathon time, that that he was running the marathon.

And it took him five years of running it to be able to hit a five hour time on the marathon. And as I was listening to this, I just had this moment of like, oh my gosh, like Harvey Lewis was quote unquote bad at it, right? And he just kept practicing. He just kept going. Now, five hours to me, you know, of course is not bad at it. I think I've said on other podcast that, like, I'm really worried that I'm not going to be able to do a six hour marathon. And I've had so much shame about this. I've had so much shame about, like, how slow I am and how I might not finish this marathon in six hours and how, like, I'm just a bad runner and I shouldn't even be doing this. And so I was listening to him. I recognize, like, oh my goodness, I have not given myself permission to be bad at this like I have, even though I've never run a marathon and this is going to be my first one, I still have an expectation that I should be able to do it in under six hours.

I still have an expectation that I should be faster than I am, right? It's my expectation here that is not allowing me to meet myself here with warmth. And it's the same for you and whatever it is you're pursuing. If you're not seeing where you are at with warmth, it's because your expectations are higher than your skill level and you're making yourself wrong for that. Like listening to Harvey Louis say, yeah, it took me five years to get my marathon time to five hours. And I was like, and he's the best runner I know, right? Like he's the greatest runner I know. And it took him five years. Like, maybe it's okay if it takes me five years, right? I just recognize all of a sudden in that moment, like I was having shame for no reason. I was telling myself, in essence, that I should be able to go out there and hit the first wave and be able to write it in. Right. And that was not a warm way to treat myself at my current surf level. I was talking to my surf instructor as we were out there on the water, and he was just saying, like, again, I had no expectations.

And so every little thing I did right, I was like so excited about and so happy about it. And he was just like, he's like, is so fun to be able to teach you because, like, you're so happy about it, right? And he said, you know, I teach surf lessons full time and he does camps all over the world. He teaches surfing, like a week at a time in Canary Islands and Costa Rica and Nicaragua. And like, all these places, like he goes everywhere. Hawaii, right? He does these surf camps. And he's like, I can't tell you like how many times, like, people will end up in tears and they're out here and they're upset and they're mad at themselves and they're disappointed and they're in tears.

And it's not because they aren't good at it, it's because they expect that they should be. And so wherever you are at and whatever you're trying, like you need to recognize that your current skill level isn't wrong. And warmth means adjusting your expectations to your current skill level. Right. Not shaming yourself for that. And that doesn't mean we settle, and it doesn't mean like, well, this is the skill level I'm always going to be at. But when we adjust our expectations with warmth to where we're at and making that good, then we can keep going.

Then we can keep progressing, then we can keep trying. So sometimes, like think about the example of parenting. We're like, well, I can't just be like happy and warmly accept my current skill level, right? Because like, it's not good and it's bad and I'm bad and my children are suffering because of it, but it's like, that's where you're at. That's your current skill level. And as soon as you can see that with warmth, then you have an opportunity to to grow and try again and expand that skill level, to keep practicing, to keep putting in the reps and to not shut down.

All right. So if repetition is the key, the answer again is warmth. Okay, the next thing that I want to talk about to help you try warmer is to really question your ideas about progress. So when I was out on the water, I wasn't just learning when it went right. I was learning every single time I took a rep. Even when I didn't know I was learning, my body was learning. And by the second lesson, I was really starting to, like, feel like the rhythm and the the wave and like how it's supposed to feel on the board. And, and one thing my instructor said was like, yes, you're doing all the same things, but your body is learning.

It wasn't like I was learning new things, right? Like it was the same four steps, right? It was always the same four steps. But my body was learning even when I fell, or even when I got off balance, or even when I grabbed the rails instead of like, putting my hands flat. Like even when I made mistakes. My body was learning and my instructor was talking about skateboarding and he was saying like, you know, I used to do tricks on the skateboard, and I would do a trick 300 times and I would fall 300 times, and then all of a sudden my body would do it.

Like all of a sudden I would do the trick, right? And I would, you know, do it right forever after that. And he would say, like, I wasn't doing anything different. I was doing the same things. I was doing the same trick, but like, I just needed enough reps for my body to learn. And really, when I was out on the surfboard, even when I did it wrong, I learned something. Even when I did it wrong and I, I fell or I was off balance or I was looking the wrong way, or I had my weight in the wrong place, like I was learning something. And it's so important that you recognize, like we are never failing, we are always learning.

And even if it seems like I just keep doing the same thing over and over again, it's not the same. There's slight variations. The wave is different, the wind is different. You are different. Everything is different. And that one rep is teaching you something else. And trying with warmups means seeing every part of that as useful, every part as important, and seeing all of it as progress. Even what we would consider quote unquote setbacks. Like, I really learned that there was no such thing as a bad rep, like there was always learning there.

Oh, like there was something always that my body and my brain was assimilating and learning, and that was going to contribute to me learning the skill eventually. And when you try warmly, it means not making any one rep or one experience or one workout or one attempt mean anything about the outcome. Like not only are the quote unquote bad reps, or the setbacks or the obstacles not keeping you from what you're trying to do, they are instructive and helpful and essential to trying what you want to do.

So when we were there in Hawaii, we were on the Big Island. And I don't know if you've been there, but there's still active volcanoes there. And there's like all of these lava flows, like the island is really pretty new in terms of like, you know, the creation. I think it's like been only around for like 400,000 years or something. Right. But I was so struck while we were there that I was like, oh my gosh, there is so much destruction. That is a part of the creative process, right? Like my husband.

Like he just loves the beauty of, like, Kauai and Maui and any like every time we saw a lava flow, he was like, oh, that's just too bad, right? Like like he's like, that's just really sad that that all of that was destroyed. And I was like, no, every part of that, like, it's not destructive, actually. Right. It's creative. Like it has to have this like lava flow over it and that has to erode and that has to break down and that has to assimilate and and that, like all of that, is part of the creative process and part of the becoming of that island.

And it's not a setback, right? It's how it's done. Right. And I think it's just so important that that's true not only in nature that like when when things die and things break down and things are assimilated and erode, like all of that is part of that creative process and part of the becoming. And that is true for ourselves as well. And sometimes we just look at our efforts and we're just like, it's just a lava field out there, right? It's just nothing but destruction and nothing but failure. And I don't see any growth, and I don't see any, like, signs of life.

Right? All I see is like how I've done it wrong and how I've done it badly. And what I want to offer you is like, no, there's no such thing right as destruction. That that is all part of the creative process. And whatever rep you're on and whatever mistake, quote unquote, that you just made or whatever like thing you did badly, like you are learning from it and it is part of your becoming. And I think it's so important that you warmly regard your setbacks and your mistakes as essential parts of your becoming, as an essential rep in your learning, the skill that you want.

We're so quick to judge our mistakes and be critical of them and think like, I knew better. I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have grabbed the rails and I shouldn't have lost my balance or whatever. I think we can all do a better job of the way that we view our quote unquote mistakes and just, like, warmly recognize this is just part of it. This is how I learn even when I do it wrong, I am learning. And given my skill level and given where I'm at, there's no other way to learn it. And that brings us to the last thing that I want to say about trying warmly, and that is really about celebrating.

Celebrating all of it. You can be proud of every effort. So as I started to get the hang of being on my board and, you know, stand up and try to balance and ride the wave, I, my instructors started asking me like, where was your head? Right? Where were you looking? And he kept telling me, like, where your head goes, that's where you go. And he said, your head is the heaviest part of you. And so you gotta look forward, right? He's like, wherever you point your head is where you were, where you will go.

And like, when I would fall off the board, he would ask me, like, where was your head? And sometimes it was looking down at the reef and being scared that I was gonna crash. And sometimes it was like on my arm that was like looking out to the side. And like, most of the time, it was like looking down at the wave and being scared that I was gonna fall into it. And he was always like, you know, we gotta look forward, right? We have to put our head forward because that's where we're gonna go. And I think that's like just a metaphor for the way that we need to, like, think about what we're concentrating on.

Right. Are we looking down? Are we looking backwards? Are we looking at the ways we might fail? Are we looking at the ways that we could get hurt? Are we looking at the ways that we still don't have it? Or are we looking where we want to go? Are we looking at all that we are accomplishing? Are we looking at the ways that we're improving? Are we looking at what we're learning? Are we looking at where we want to go and not where we don't want to go? And I think this is why celebration is not just allowed, but that it matters that it's an important part I want you to be looking at with every rep, what was there there to be proud of? Like whatever it is you're doing, your parenting, your money management, the way you take care of your body.

Like every time you end up off your board and in the water, there was something there to be proud of, even if you're just celebrating, I tried again. The problem with thinking about trying harder is like there's no room for celebration because there's no finish line. We can always try harder. There's always more to try. Like, like we just never get to be excited and proud and happy because we can always try harder. But try warmer means that you get to celebrate a lot. You get to celebrate all the time. Try warmer means you are actively looking for things to celebrate and love yourself for and appreciate yourself for.

Okay, my friends, that's what I have for you today. Lessons from surfing. Stop trying harder and start trying warmer. Be warm with your feelings and your expectations and your current skill level and your progress. And put your focus on all the ways that you are winning. Because what I learned is that if you try warmer, you never have to stop trying. And if you never stop trying, then what you want is inevitable. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome. I love you for listening and I'll see you next week.

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you're serious about changing your life, you first have to change your mind. And the best way to do that is through coaching. I work with my clients one on one to help them change their thoughts and their feelings about themselves, their lives, and their challenges so that they can live a life they love. If you'd like to work with me one on one, you can learn more and schedule a free call to try coaching for yourself at Aprilpricecoaching.com.