“I’m Trying” vs “I’m Doing”: What That Sentence Is Actually Doing

On the first day of my undergraduate statistics course, our professor skipped introductions and asked us to close our eyes. She told us to picture, clearly, why we were there, what our end goal was. Then she asked us to answer one question internally: whether we believed we would reach that goal.

I remember answering immediately that to myself that I would. There was no internal debate. It didn’t feel like motivation or self-encouragement. It felt like a position I had already taken. Then she explained why she asked.

Students who answered with certainty were statistically more likely to follow through. Students who answered with some version of “I’ll try” were already lowering their probability of success -

not because they lacked ability - rather, because of how they were relating to their own action.

“I’m trying” is one of the most common phrases therapists hear in session. It sounds responsible. It sounds like effort. But when you slow it down, it usually reflects something else:

it creates distance. Not dramatic distance: just enough to avoid fully committing to the action. Just enough to protect against the possibility of not following through.

That matters, because the brain organizes around that uncertainty.

Bandura’s work on self-efficacy makes this clear. People are more likely to persist when they believe their actions will lead somewhere. When that belief is weaker, effort becomes inconsistent, and follow-through drops (Bandura, 1997). The language doesn’t create the belief, but it reflects it accurately.

The same pattern shows up in research on goal execution. When people define what they are going to do in concrete terms, they are significantly more likely to do it. When the intention stays vague, behavior stays inconsistent (Gollwitzer, 1999). “Trying” keeps things vague. It doesn’t anchor the action anywhere.

That said, it would be clinically lazy to reduce “I’m trying” to lack of discipline. The sentence "I am trying" sticks around because it is actually doing a job: it softens the emotional risk of action. It allows someone to stay connected to something that matters without fully exposing themselves to failure, shame, or disappointment. If someone has a history where effort didn’t lead to safety or success, committing fully is not neutral. It’s loaded.

So they say, “I’m trying.”

And from a nervous system perspective, that makes sense - the problem is that it also keeps them stuck. The same mechanism that protects them from failure also prevents movement.

Shifting to “I’m doing” is often presented as the solution, but that can be just as unhelpful if it’s forced. If the internal capacity isn’t there, it turns into pressure, and pressure quickly turns into avoidance.

What actually works is more grounded than both.

When someone can name a specific action they are taking, something that exists in time and can be followed through on, the dynamic changes. It’s no longer about identity or motivation. It becomes behavioral.

That is where movement happens. So this isn’t really about wording. It’s about whether there is a clear link between intention and behavior.

“I’m trying” often signals that the link is weak or undefined ; “I’m doing” suggests the link is active.

And if neither feels accurate, then the work is not to correct the sentence, but to identify what is actually getting in the way of action. That professor wasn’t teaching mindset; she was pointing to something measurable. Before behavior shows up, people have already positioned themselves in relation to it.

And if you listen closely, you can usually hear that position in a single sentence.

References

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W. H. Freeman.

Bem, D. J. (1972). Self-perception theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 6, pp. 1–62). Academic Press.

Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.493