Inspired Leap - You are far more brilliant than you think you are!

• Quotes of the Month
• Upcoming Speaking Engagements
• Is It Possible to Succeed in an Easy and Relaxed Manner?
• What Does "Easy and Relaxed" Success Look Like?
• How Do You Make It Happen?
• Inspired Leap Reminders
• Final Thoughts on Letting Success Be Easy

Do we really have to work hard and make sacrifices in order to succeed in our careers? I used to think so. Now, I believe it’s time to throw that old belief away.

Between some interesting conversations with friends and associates and listening to an audio CD version of Marc Allen’s book, The Millionaire Course, I’ve come to understand how my old belief about needing to work hard to succeed had a negative influence on me. Allen's professed laziness and how he honored and worked with it to achieve multi-million dollar success and abundance in all areas of his life struck me as a beacon of hope in this fast-paced world we live in.

Read on to be inspired to imagine, affirm, and create your ideal life in an easy and relaxed manner.

Our lives, our world, the whole universe is an endless movement of great polarities. Winter follows summer. Night follows day. Don't forget to follow your activity with inactivity and rest.

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If you’re like me, most of your core beliefs about money and success assume you need to work hard to create a profitable and worthwhile career and life. "No pain; no gain" is a typical phrase thrown out to remind us to sweat our way up the corporate ladder or spend hours "burning the midnight oil" to build our businesses. However, what if we could achieve our highest ideal of success without working long hours and sacrificing our relationships and health?

The first step to take to make it possible for you to achieve success in an easy and relaxed manner is for you to believe it is possible. Your nonconscious mind (remember, that part of your brain represents 5/6th of your brain power) takes everything you tell it literally, and the more you tell it something, the stronger the neural pathway—and therefore—the belief, habit, or pattern. If all of the messages from your family, teachers, and society have convinced you (even without your conscious awareness) that you must work hard, make sacrifices, and face adversity to achieve success (however you define it), then that is what you will create for yourself.

Every thought you think is a bit of energy with a vibration associated with it. If you repeatedly think something, it turns into a belief with a strong vibration. That vibration attracts to it a matching vibration. This is why affirmations can be so powerful and helpful. I write "can be" because if your dominating belief is in opposition to a new affirmation, then your old belief can override the more positive affirmation. That’s why it’s so important to understand what your true beliefs are about a subject before you set about to create something new, even a new attitude.

First, consider what true career success looks and feels like for you. If you had no worries about the hours you’d be required to work, the sacrifices you’d need to make in your personal relationships, or the loss of free or play time, what would you envision your career to look like at the pinnacle of success? While doing this visualization, it’s critical that you completely ignore your inner critic. It will throw up roadblocks and offer logical reasons why it’s impossible to achieve your wildest dream of success without sacrifice or hard work.

One of the ways you might sabotage your chance at success with ease is to focus on the "how" before you’ve even begun to dream. Trying to come up with all of the steps to take and to imagine how you will achieve all of them is a great way to pour cold water on the fire of your vision.

One of the most profound ah-ha’s for me was the realization that it’s not my work to worry about how to make my dreams come true. My work is to get clear on what I truly want, visualize it, believe I deserve it and can have it, and pay attention to the inspired thoughts and ideas that come to me (via my ever-helpful nonconscious mind) to achieve it. I don’t have to consciously figure out how to make my dream a reality and neither do you.

After you’ve ignored your inner critic and had fun imagining what being wildly successful looks like, consider what achieving that success in an "easy and relaxed manner" would look like. What does "easy and relaxed" success mean to you? Does that mean a forty hour work week? Does that mean weekends free? Does it mean time to play with family, friends, or pets every evening?

Taking a cue from Marc Allen in The Millionaire Course, what if you allowed yourself to be the most successful, (again, whatever that means for you) lazy business person in the world. How lazy would you be? Allen doesn’t do mornings. He hates working on Mondays, so he doesn’t. He gives about equal time to his family, his work (being in the office and attending to day-to-day business), and to himself. In the times he’s by himself, he sometimes daydreams, sleeps, meditates, goofs off or spends time in nature.

The reason Allen—a multi-millionaire publisher—confidently honors his lazy nature is that he realizes the power of allowing plenty of down time and rest to harness the power of his nonconscious mind and the universe. Giving himself permission to be as lazy as he wants gives him the ability to have laser-like focus and attention when he's in action mode—taking inspired action.

If you’re working in the corporate world for someone else, it may seem impossible to work even a little bit like Allen does. However, remember your work right now isn’t to figure out how to make it happen. Your work is to figure out what true career success looks like to you and how it would look if it were achieved in an easy and relaxed manner.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the way it is that we can’t see the possibilities—the way it could be. Once you start visualizing your successful career being achieved in an easy and relaxed manner, all sorts of inspired ideas will come to you about how to begin making that happen.

As stated earlier, the first step you need to take to achieve your desired success in an easy and relaxed manner is to start to change your beliefs about the possibility of doing that. Think about your old beliefs regarding what it takes to succeed in the world and write new beliefs or affirmations that are the exact opposite. Repeat them frequently throughout your day for at least 21 days. For example, if your old belief is that "it takes hard work and sacrifice to succeed in my career," then you might want to create a new affirmation that says, "I achieve success in my career in an easy and relaxed manner, for the highest good of all."

The second step is to get clear on what you want success in an easy and relaxed manner to be or to look like. The third step is to begin visualizing that success daily. Set aside time in the morning or evening and, if possible, during lunch to visualize an ideal scene or day that exemplifies this success. Perhaps you see yourself sleeping in until 9 am, having a leisurely breakfast, strolling in to the office at 11am and breaking for a late lunch at 2pm, laughing with co-workers throughout the day while easily completing your work, then enjoying a movie at night with your family. Whatever it is, get into the emotion of it and begin to imagine it.

The next step is to allow yourself to receive or achieve this new visualization and to trust that you deserve it. To do that, you must be willing to acknowledge that you are powerful and brilliant enough to manifest a successful career attained with ease! In Marianne Williamson’s famous quote below, she asks us who are we not to be brilliant, and she points out that our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

Could being powerful beyond measure be our greatest fear because we think it means we have to use that power to work hard and to sacrifice our fun and our relationships in order to live up to that power and potential? What if we now knew that being powerful meant being able to attract in the life of our dreams and be guided and inspired to create this life in an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all? How might you begin to create your ideal work day differently if that were true?

The final step is to pay attention to the inspired ideas or images that come to you. Follow up on the "ah-ha's" that come via dreams, conversations, meditating, or reading, and watch your easy and relaxed success begin to unfold. You are far more brilliant than you think you are, so don’t be afraid to allow that brilliance to guide you to achieving success on your terms—in an easy and relaxed manner.

Inspired Leap Reminders are areas of focus and part of the Inspired Leap Approach to maximizing productivity, creativity, and morale. In each newsletter, we take a look at how the topic of the month might be viewed in the context of these important areas of focus. Or, in some cases, we use the section as a gentle reminder to pay attention to these concepts in our daily lives.

Responsibility: We go into victim mode when we use the excuse of what happened to others or talk about the way it's always been to keep us from going for what we want. What have you denied yourself because you thought the sacrifice would be too great in order to achieve it? Take responsibility for creating your life. Realize that your mind is "powerful beyond measure" and can create the success you want in an easy and relaxed manner if you will only believe in your ability to do so.

Creativity: Have fun with seeing yourself as lazy and successful. I spoke with a friend this morning who told me about a powerful millionaire and mentor who conducted business at conferences pool-side, while sipping delightful drinks! Now there's an image of succeeding in an easy and relaxing way! In what fun ways might you achieve your career goals if you could arrange it? Let your imagination go wild and then cut out images that fit with your imagination and write down a story to fit with those images. Keep looking at the images and at what you've written down and watch the pieces slowly fall into place.

Detachment: Remember that you are not supposed to focus on "how" your easy and relaxed success will be achieved. If you create a detailed plan that you must follow to the letter, you are not allowing your nonconscious mind or the universe to connect you with the right people or the right opportunities at the right time. Focus on the outcome, but detach from how it will come about.

Forgiveness: All of your power is in the present moment. Forgiveness allows you to stay focused in the present and let go of the past. Like a tennis player waiting for a serve, you want to be ready to respond with all of your energy and intelligence when an opportunity presents itself. You can't do that if your energy and focus is on a grievance from the past.

Kindness and Compassion: We have been trained for years to look outside ourselves for answers and to assume that "stuff happens." Have compassion for yourself and others when you fall into the "that's just the way it is" mentality or the "you've got to put in the hours to succeed around here" thinking.

Resistance to Change: Your inner critic's responsibility is to keep you safe in the status quo, even if it means saying no to your dreams. Sometimes that's a good thing, but most of the time it's a drain on your energy and your ability to have the life you desire. Acknowledge the voice that shows you examples of what can go wrong and the work that's required to achieve a goal and then go about crafting a powerful affirmation that counters that fear. Use your nonconscious mind’s inability to discern the immediate truth of a statement to your advantage. Think big, bold, positive, and easy!

If you’re like me, you can quickly psych yourself out of anything by focusing on all of the potential hurdles and blocks in your way and the ramifications of your actions. How different would your life be if you focused your attention on powerfully stating what you want and the way you want to achieve it?

May you find the courage to boldly state your dreams, the confidence to believe in your ability to manifest them, and the trust to focus on the "what" and "way" and to let the universe focus on the "how." And, may you remind yourself to stay in the present moment, so you can intuit when each small step toward the "how" is given to you.

If your company needs help with inspiring employees to reach new heights in productivity, creativity, morale, and integrity, please contact us at inspiredleap.com or 512-236-0090. If you need some more inspiration or more regular nudging to practice these steps, check out our website to see what’s new to inspire you (a visit to The Quiet Room may be just what you need!).