What if you could get everything you wanted with no effort?
In fact, what if the secret to achieving your biggest dreams is following your joy and living life in a state of ease? Sound too good to be true? Well, it is possible and here’s why: big dreams do not come with effort, they come with ease. I know this from personal experience in transforming myself from a burned out type-A overachiever into living my dream of working from home, taking yoga class in the middle of the day, helping my community, as well as other things – all while working half as many hours and making double what I used to. Within two years of deciding that’s what I wanted, I was doing all of that. Working half the hours with double the salary. Everyone asks me how I did it, and I came up with the three key ingredients that when combined got me out of burnout and into a life that I love! Here are those three ingredients: 1) Identify the things that bring you joy, and then do them! For me, it was dance class, yoga, going for walks, and spending time with my nieces and nephews. I went to soccer games, grandparents breakfasts (even though I was an aunt), read in their classrooms, and ate my favorite luxurious cupcakes (Georgetown Cupcakes - yum!). All these activities made me happy and brought me great joy! What I see more and more today are people who are not following their joy. Their reason – they simply do not have the time. And, the less they follow their joy, the harder it is to achieve their goal. I found the fastest way to achieve a goal does not involve effort, but rather, belief the goal will be achieved and living a life of joy. 2) Focus on feelings rather than actions. As an overachiever, this one was a shocker for me! What I was doing was much less important then how I was feeling! The actions are unimportant. Read that again. The actions are unimportant. What is important is the feeling, the belief, the being. The doing is negligible. After I wrote my dream life (kind of a vision board, but with words and process flows), I never really looked at it again. I hung it on my wall, so subconsciously I probably saw it all the time, but I never really read it again. Until I was taking it down two years later and shockingly realized I had achieved every single thing I had written down. The actions were unimportant, but the time I took to create that board and the feeling of freedom and joy I had when I imagined that life, miraculously transformed into it occurring. 3) Take care of yourself, and only you know exactly what that means for you. I did not learn this in a positive context of achieving my dreams through ease; I learned this through sheer mental and emotional exhaustion. I remember being exhausted and deciding that I just did not give a [blank] anymore. In that state, all I had energy to do was anything that would get me to stop feeling the pain I was in. I was an overachiever leaving work early to go for walks (sure I was having some sort of nervous breakdown). I was scared, but too tired in that moment to do anything other than the little things that brought me joy. Once I came up with these three keys, I decided to test them out and ensure they worked. I took a year to see if I followed my joy, did not worry about the specific actions or exert effort, and took great care of myself, could I make the same amount as the previous year? I did better than that - I made more than the previous year, working even less and taking even better care of myself. Since then, I have consistently made more each year for the past five years, each year working significantly less hours than the year before. I only say yes to work I really want to do, so it does not feel like “work.” I do a lot of “work” for free because I love what I do, and somehow, the money keeps showing up. But, I know now, if I chased the money or “tried” to do something, it would not work nearly as well as just doing what I love and trusting that it will all work out financially. In yoga, there is a philosophy about balancing between ease and effort. I have found this philosophy to not only apply to yoga, but to all areas of life. There is a time for action. And, when that time comes it feels really, really, really good to take the action. It does not feel like effort. Do you have moments where you are working harder than ever before (which appears to the outside world as putting in tons of effort), but it doesn’t feel like you are working at all? In fact, rather than feeling stressed and exhausted it feels joyful and exhilarated? That is what 0% effort, 100% return means. It does not mean you will never “work hard” again. It just means that when you are working hard, it won’t feel hard. There is no strain, exertion, exhaustion – instead it’s joyful. The key ingredient for this to work is JOY! Allow the magical force of the world to easily, effortlessly, bring your biggest dreams to you! Want to try it out for yourself? Join us in April for the 30 Day Joy Challenge! Sign up here.
6 Comments
Nancy
4/1/2016 04:53:40 am
Are you still taking participants for the joy challenge that started March 29th?
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Sandi
4/13/2016 08:59:38 pm
Amina, I was able to catch the repeat of the joy phone call today, it was amazing, and have quickly been making notes for the week ahead.
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Dottie Brown
3/27/2018 03:16:42 pm
This is soo AWESOME.
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fROM aMINA...
Hi! Welcome to my blog, Lunch with Cinderella. I love writing about my life experiences and the fact that they may help spur some cool experiences of your own. If you are here, leave a comment... I read them all and love hearing from you! Get New Blogs delivered to your Inbox!
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