Why “hard work” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be!

I’ve never been accused of being a slacker.  Hard work and I are very good friends, in fact.  I know how it feels to work all night on a project with my team and present to a board meeting the next day.  I’ve worked weeks without a day off before.  I’ve gotten up at 3am to finish training presentations and answer emails.  I’ve traveled to different hemispheres and walked off the plane and had to lead meetings whilst suffering from extreme jet lag and culture shock.  Hard work and I?  Yeah, we’re well acquainted.

I once had a therapist tell me, “If I wanted you to nail something into that wall over there and gave you a hammer and nails, I expect you’d try and put the nail in with your head!”  I seem to have a natural ability to make things harder than they need to be.  I always figured if it didn’t feel hard, I must not be doing it right.  I assumed that all that suffering was par for the course.  If I wanted to be successful, I had to work hard, push through it, keep striving.  That’s what they tell us here in America.  All we have to do is to work hard, and all our dreams will come true.

But that is, of course, a big fat lie.

The truth is that many successful people don’t work very hard at all.  Some of them get success in unscrupulous ways, others just seem to be too lucky for their own good and it all comes very easily.  And many, many hard working people don’t ever achieve their dreams.  Hard work is no guarantee that you’ll have a happy life.

Here’s the Big Secret:  If you want a life full of joy, fun and happiness, you can’t get there through “suffering.”  In fact, if you’re suffering right now thinking you’ll have joy and happiness some magical day when your business takes off, you are sadly mistaken.  People who are happily successful know that you must bring joy and happiness with you on the journey.  These things are not a destination!

The best advice I ever got was this:  If it feels like hard work, you’re not doing it right.

And that is very true about building a heart-centered business.  When it feels too much like hard work, when you’re stressing out about how to do the next thing on your list, when it is stealing the joy and fun out of your life, it’s a sign that it’s time to reassess your strategy.  Sit back and find another way.  Because this work we’re doing?  It’s supposed to feel NATURAL.  It’s supposed to be EASY.  That’s how we know we’re in the right zone, doing the right things, and making a real difference.

And the success?  It’ll start rushing into your life without you even having to try very hard.  Just like magic! But suffering will block it all from happening.

Let it be easy.  Let joy and laughter and fun be natural by-products of your business activities.  This is how you know you’re on the right track!  This is how you’ll know when you’re in the zone of what you’re here to do.