When Working Harder is NOT the Answer

It used to be my natural default when life got challenging to push through and work even harder (even when I was already putting in ridiculous hours). If you are like me, let me share a little secret with you. The answer is NOT working harder! It has taken me a lot of years and a lot of knocks on my tush, but By George, I think I’ve finally got it. Years ago when I was really feeling challenged by my lack of progress towards my goals, I surrendered into a meditation after asking the Universe for an answer to my question,

What more do I need to do to create greater financial abundance in my life?

After a period of time relaxing and allowing my mind to clear, I saw a visual clearly in my mind’s eye of me treading water. After several excruciating minutes of watching myself struggle to maintain the pace of treading in tumultuous waters, I witnessed my body surrender to the struggle and float on my back with ease, the waters calmed and all was at peace. The message was clear, quit trying so hard, relax into the knowing, trust.

So if working harder is not the answer, what is?

Clarity. Focus. And Balance.

Clarity

It is really easy to be very busy, yet busy on all the wrong things. It feels like I’m doing all I can possibly do, but it is my ego playing that funny little trick to keep me safe and playing small. I know when my vision is clear, I am unstoppable, yet it is easy to not give myself the ‘white space’ to get clear on my top priorities and what I truly desire. So now at the first sign of spinning my wheels, I meditate and allow the answers to come to me. I ask for guidance from the divine on anything that may be puzzling me. And, to keep ahead of the game, I meditate daily as a practice to hear, see or feel the creative wheels churning on the next best course of action to take with grace and ease. When you know what is most important to you, you can begin to clear away all the things that are not important that are eating up your time.

Focus

Once my vision is clear, it is important to keep the main thing, the main thing, and not get distracted in the secondary, less important shiny objects. For me, these are rules like 1) not addressing emails until after I have addressed my priorities, so aside from a scan to see if there is an email from someone I am waiting to hear back from, I do not ‘clean’ my inbox until later in the day after my most productive hours have been put to my creative projects and business priorities. And 2) shutting down Facebook and other social media during my office hours aside from posting a message I may want to share. Otherwise, this is a deep, dark rabbit hole of entertaining time suck.

Balance

I have learned that when I am strict and cruel, not allowing myself to play because there is too much work to be done, my productivity comes to a screeching halt with more hours needed to get even less done. Yet, when I get out to yoga, a hike in nature or good belly laughs with a friend, I am rejuvenated in mind, body and spirit and the work can flow through me effortlessly and with great joy!

So now over to you, what do you do to create more balance, flow, and ease in your life?

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