50% Less Try
One of my acting teachers used to say something that has stayed with me for years:
"Fifty percent less try."
Sometimes it was thirty percent. Sometimes it was seventy. Etc.
The point was this: beware of trying too hard. Dun dun dunnnnn
I can only remember him saying this generally to the whole room every so often. I don’t remember if he ever gave that specific phrase to me as a personal acting note, but I definitely remember times where my acting was…a lot. If I felt something wasn’t working, my instinct at times was to do more. Speak louder! Feel harder! Push further! This is dramaaaa! (O, woe is me!) Surely more effort will produce a better performance! I’m pretty sure it almost never did. Trying harder usually made me tighter. I became self-conscious instead of present. More focused on what I could win or lose instead of what the character could win or lose. I stopped listening because I became more concerned with producing an effect. And I’m sure the audience could feel how hard I was trying.
The moments that actually came alive weren’t forced. I wasn't reaching for emotion - except occasionally when a bit of comic exaggeration called for it. I wasn't trying to convince anyone. I let the words do the heavy lifting. I wasn’t trying to be interesting. Nothing interesting happens when you’re trying to be interesting. “Dont just do something - stand there!” A similarly useful phrase. Backwards to some, but oh so freeing.
I've been thinking about the phrase “50% less try” outside the theater lately.
Some days I notice moments where my shoulders are somewhere around my ears.
I criticize small mistakes I make that really don’t matter. I try to say exactly the right thing. I over-explain because I want to be understood. I chase an ideal version of myself. I sing louder to be noticed. I ruminate and worry.
Recently, I noticed this in a very ordinary way. Health anxiety entered the chat and I became so focused on eating the "perfect" diet that I ended up just not eating enough for a few days. My effort to do everything right actually moved me farther away from health. Trying to be perfect - it backfires. Trying to do things in your own strength - it backfires.
How silly! But how often does that happen? How often does trying so hard become the very thing that keeps us from the life we're trying to build?
Maybe gentleness is more effective than force…paying attention accomplishes more than striving…slowing down creates more room for love than rushing…
This isn't an argument against discipline or excellence. Actors rehearse. Athletes train. Students study. Christians practice prayer, generosity, and repentance. All of this matters. Keep doing the things!
But there's a difference between faithful practice and anxious striving. There’s a difference between effort and tension. It’s like how white knuckling the steering wheel can ironically make you a worse driver because your movements become less fluid, you tire out more quickly, your field of attention is probably more narrow, and you react disproportionately instead of responding appropriately.
One side of the coin is rooted in trust and surrender. The other is rooted in fear. One opens the body. The other tightens it. One leaves room for God. The other assumes everything depends on me.
Do not hurry; do not rest (says the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). Jesus often seemed remarkably unhurried. He didn't appear frantic about proving himself. He wasn’t scrambling to manufacture outcomes. But he also never paused for too long. The invitation for us is to loosen our grip. To trust that a life well lived may require far less muscle than we imagine. To trust that God actually hears us. That He is with us. That His presence isn’t dependent on our effort. We can trust in His unchanging nature and steadfast love.
So, the Q for today: Where am I putting out unnecessary effort? Where am I trying to produce what can only be received? The invitation is: release it. Perhaps something more honest will emerge. Get out of bed using the least amount of muscle tomorrow (just for fun lol). Less try.
“It is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender.” - Jenny Holzer
“Control whispers: ‘If you use me I can help you escape from the clutches of Fear.’ But this is merely a brilliant set-up, a ‘sting.’ When we try to escape from Fear by using Control, we end up more and more ensnared with Fear.” - Declan Donnellan, The Actor and the Target