Does this make me look like I’m trying too hard?

I tend to run from anything that makes me look like I’m trying too hard.

Yet in reality, you can know that I’m trying extremely hard at nearly everything and anything I do.

If I do it, I try extremely hard at it, 90% of the time.

The other 10% is usually due to what I call “strategic laziness” and it’s slacked on only because I need to allocate more resources to something else I’m trying hard on. So you could say that even that is trying hard.

However, I hate looking like I’m trying hard most of the time. Sometimes it’s okay to look that way – beneficial even. It can give you credibility and trust.

Usually though, it doesn’t. It does the opposite.

I hate landing on website or profiles with photos of guys that are overly corny or cliche, bios written in third person bragging on how they’ll help me live my life better, and other non authentic nonsense.

It yells at me, “I have no self awareness or social awareness and if I was thinking about you at all, which I’m not, I’d be thinking that you won’t have these awarenesses either.”

It makes me cringe, feel slightly sorry for them, wonder if their wives feel loved, or if they have them, and then run away.

I don’t want to be that guy.

I have no doubt that I appear to be from time to time.

When you’re trying hard, you are bound to make some crazy, stupid blunders and look like a total dork that “just doesn’t get it.”

Worse, online you’re bound to have people think, “I wonder if this guy even has friends or if he’s actually that guy in real life that everyone is like ‘oh great here comes Riley…’.”

While this is true and unavoidable in some ways, I think it’s still worth trying my hardest to try to avoid it. It’s just a struggle sometimes.

I overanalyze every email to people I want to respect me.

I rewrite About pages, taglines, and author blurbs 257 times.

I get testimonials and then never use them.

On and on…

But what I try to do most, and has been decently successful so far, is what I believe is the most valuable thing a person can do.

I try to do what I do, no matter what it is who for, with crazy-go-nuts thorough excellence. I try to be as aware as possible about what anyone affected by it will feel, think, say or do with it or because of it.

Then I hope that speaks for itself.

If whatever I’m doing does speak for itself with excellence, then all I have to do is be authentically me, and my actions and other people will speak for me.

It’s good. It’s genuine.

If it doesn’t, then I figure it’s best to not try to overly flaunt “it” or myself anyway because again, that’ll just make me lose trust, respect and admiration even faster.

A reverse effect – exactly what you were trying hard and hoping to appear to have, you lose the most of.

There can be fine lines though, and they are hard to walk.