She didn’t always feel this way!
When my client started to work with me, she was a rookie. She used to say, her phone was glued to her hip for fear of missing a call and business.
While practicing what she had been taught was the way to success, she became an addict, addicted to her work. By the way, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a definition of addict is “to devote or surrender (oneself) to something habitually or obsessively.”
However, she came to realize that she was so busy setting herself up for the future that she wasn’t living in the present.
She was living to work, not working to live.
Work wasn’t enjoyable because she believed she had to retire before having fun. Even when she achieved her goal of seven-weeks of vacation a year, she wasn’t enjoying herself.
People began to annoy her. Work became a chore. She began to long for early retirement until she had this awareness:
“Many of us have been brought up to believe that we’re supposed to work hard, put our nose to the grind stone (ouch) and struggle to get ahead. It’s the way we were programmed to think. But this isn’t true.”
That’s the way she thought until she had a wake-up call due to emergency surgery that took her a year before she got her mojo back. Then she knew she had to approach things differently, and she was open to change.
Recently, after a slower schedule during the holidays, she thought she had to “push herself” to start work again after leisurely vegging on Hallmark TV movies. She felt she had to “make herself” get out of what she felt was her comfort zone, even though she didn’t feel comfortable being there any more.
Her old pattern kicked in of pushing herself out of her so-called comfort zone that actually wasn’t comfortable anymore. What she was ready for was to return to her comfort zone.
Consider this:
She was beginning to feel uncomfortable vegging out. If she simply followed what she felt like doing, stop watching so much TV, and switched her focus of attention to business, she’d be in alignment with what her Essence was guiding her to do.
If you’re pushing or trying to make things happen, you’re working against yourself and the guidance your Essence is communicating to you.
There was no need to make re-engaging in work a struggle. Nor did she have to push herself, create a story about how she had to get back to business or tell herself that she had to stop being so comfortable… because continuing to watch TV had become an UNcomfortable zone.
The key was for her to return to her comfort zone, and continuing to watch TV while berating herself was not comfortable.
It was time to consciously align her energy with her inner spirit instead of fighting it.
Responding to shifting winds while riding in a sailboat requires changing course. It’s just part of the sport. When shifting tides in life occur, change course. It’s just part of life. Associated story and drama are neither required nor helpful.
Your Essence will guide you to where you need to be. If you’re not happy, not having fun, not feeling good, pushing yourself or making yourself wrong for not doing more, no matter how you try to justify it, you’re out of sync with your spirit and inner guidance.
How can you work less? How can you make more money? Have more fun!
Soulgoals' Blog 