When Trying Harder Stops Working

Most of us are taught a simple rule: If something isn’t working, try harder.

That rule served me well, until it didn’t.

When pain becomes part of one’s life, one might think there is a need for: More discipline. More persistence. More determination.

Sometimes we assume the problem is not the strategy, it is the execution. So we push.

It took me some time to understand what was happening; what changed. The rules had changed. Not moral rules. Not character rules. Practical ones. Assumptions on the "how".

Pain changes how energy is spent and recovered. It changes timelines. It changes directions. It changes margins between effort and outcomes. Strategies that once produced progress can start producing harm, not because they are wrong in principle, but because they no longer fit the conditions. Trying harder at an old strategy doesn’t make it work again. It might just increase the cost of failure.

The real work, I learned, wasn’t about effort. It was about design.

Finding new ways to move forward. Different paths. Different pacing. Different rules. Redefining what “process” looks like. Discovering or inventing strategies that fit this context, this reality.

What i call "roadmap design".

That shift, considering alternate routes, rethinking assumptions, modifying rules, changed everything.

*Reflections of Abled When Disabled, which explores how we move forward when the rules of life change.