Doing What’s Counterintuitive To Achieve More Success

Most people think in order to be successful, you need to work hard. Yet, how many people do you know who work hard and aren’t successful? Better still, how long have you been working hard and not had the results you wanted? This mindset has often frustrated me, so I decided to put it to the test. In order to get different results, you need to try something different!

The Chinese have a beautiful concept called Wu Wei, which means effortless action, or conscious non action. It’s not saying don’t do anything, it’s about choosing the action which requires effortless action, going with the flow and not against it. Just like a river will flow around a rock without hesitation, without trying to fight the rock. Have you ever noticed that when you force things in life, they often don’t work out, or deliver the outcome you want.

People are so busy being busy, there is no space in their life, or their mind, for new ideas to enter.  I know I’d been busy doing so many different things in the first three years of my  business, my energy was disbursed in so many different directions, yet I wasn’t getting traction in the areas that really mattered to me. So last year (2021) I decided to give myself 6 months to step back, to peel away all the ‘busyness’, and just give myself space. It was about creating quiet so that new thoughts could enter. It was about saying no to things that didn’t align with my ‘one thing’. It was about doing things that put me into a good feeling state. I felt like life was going in slow motion, but at the same time, I also seemed to be achieving a lot. It got to Christmas and I didn’t even feel like I needed a break.

Do you want to know what happened?

• For someone who was taking a step away from work, it was interesting to see how business would come in just when I needed a little financial boost, and it was with the next level of clients that I had consciously identified I wanted to work with.
• I’d been looking for 18 months to find the right marketing person to help me set up e-commerce systems in my business, and she emerged.
• I took on a marketing intern into my business to help me with marketing.
• I finished writing my book (Career Awakening: How To Align Your Career With Your Soul Purpose) which I started writing 4 years earlier and had been plodding along with.

I kicked some big goals I’d been trying to complete for years, yet I felt that I had plenty of spare time to look after my wellbeing and enjoy life.

This was not only benefiting me, but it was benefiting my clients. When I was with them, I was refreshed and had the energy to focus on them and new knowledge to share. My mind was clear and the right thoughts and words would come to me in sessions, and I could really tune into what was going on for that person, so I was able to provide better service to them.

Now I appreciate that you might not be in the same position to step back from life for 6 months, however you can take this approach in your daily life. Get clear on what your main goal is and really question all the other tasks you are doing, functions you’re attending, people you’re spending time with because you feel you have to, conversations you’re participating in. Peel back the busyness in your life and see what happens. You see, it is no longer a badge of honour to be so busy you don’t have time to spare. If that is you, I would ask, what are you trying to distract yourself from?

If you want to get clear on your One Thing in your life, you could start here.

(Remember to get your copy of Careers Awakening: How To Align Your Career With Your Soul Purpose here.)