Harder and Longer Aren't Always Best

First published on August 23, 2017

Here's where I'm dancing at the moment. I'm trying to release the link, ingrained in me, that more success only comes from working harder, and particularly longer. 

I know this isn't true. I know that I coach better when I'm rested, deeply in touch with myself, and calm. And I know that working 60+ hours in a week, including late nights and early starts, doesn't help with my actual work. It helped me get here, and it might get me more clients in the short term, but it doesn't enable me to serve those clients as well, as powerfully, as magically, as when I'm deeply centred and out of my own head. 

More than that, I know that when I get out of my head and let inspiration strike, great things happen. My most read article poured out over two sittings. I had an idea to write it, but I didn't until a client cancelled at late notice. Then I sat there and checked in and said, What shall I do now, with this time? And the answer came: Get on with it and write that piece about how you got here. 

I've been asking myself, recently, what next? I've reached my two-year dream, the last bit of vision for the future that I had in place. I've said to myself, 'I can't put time into creating something magical, because I don't know what it is.' But the truth is, I can't find the magical thing until I give myself the space, and take the action, to let inspiration in. 

So this is where I'm dancing. My coach and I set me a task. Create something, just for you. Something at the edge of what I'm 'allowed' to create. Maybe just beyond that. And today I did. I sat down in a coffee shop in London and wrote. And every time I stopped writing, I sat back and opened myself and asked 'What wants to be written?' And then I wrote it. 

This was a strange experience. I didn't know what was going to come. It was quite different to what I'd written before; more like some of my brother's writing, in some ways, than mine. But with my own spin, the ingredients of me. And something more. Something beyond me. I'm not sure if I'll publish it, or if it's just for me. But what I do know is that I left the coffee shop feeling different. Having opened myself to inspiration, it came. And this afternoon I had a clearer head, clearer thoughts, and took more enjoyment - whilst being very productive - than I thought I would out of the things on my list. I replied to emails, wrote 80% of a website about a project Nicole and I are working on, and took part in a group call, stretching myself into question asking territory. Good things will come from all these things. 

This is where we started: somehow, dancing in the space of inspiration, in Jim Dethmer's Through Me, comes the productivity without the harder and longer. But without the pain of harder and longer. 

Now I'm not there yet, I still have the fear. This week, I haven't had many coaching sessions, or many meetings. I've joyed in the independence and freedom, about half the time. The rest of the time my fear has been loud: you need to do more, or you'll be poor and homeless. 

But this week I have written, I have business-planned, I have reflected on my Zone of Genius; I have learnt, I have read, I have moved a project towards completion. 

Any or each of those could lead to more success, however I choose to define it, than I could have got by emailing, calling or meeting any single potential client. And probably will. 

But how do I get comfortable with that? That's where I'm dancing.