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

• Quote of the Month
• Upcoming Speaking Engagements
• Work Less: Accomplish More
• Creative New Beliefs
• Work Your Nonconscious Mind, Heart, and Soul
• Do It For Your Health!
• Final Thoughts on One Small Change

At the end of April, I'm excited to be offering my first workshop out at The Crossings with my new collaborator, Misha Thomas. The workshop, Work Less: Accomplish More, is all about our ability to proactively (consciously) create our life. This month I want to focus on how to retrain yourself to work less and accomplish more. And, I hope to inspire you to come out to The Crossings to spend the day with Misha and me. For what could be more important than stretching your mind to carry more of the workload, so you have time to play and enjoy the fruits of your labor?

An Intuitive Experience at Lake Austin Spa Resort: March 29, 2007, 9:00 am – 3:00pm. (Visit Inspired Leap for the one remaining spot!)
Work Less: Accomplish More: April 26, 2007, 9:00am to 3:30pm at The Crossings in Austin, TX (Visit Inspired Leap to sign up.) This is the first of three workshops in a new Break Through Series out at The Crossings retreat center. I'm thrilled to be collaborating with a powerful, creative woman, Misha Thomas, on these workshops and a four-day retreat in Sedona in October, 2007. Go to the Inspired Leap website to find out more.
Envision 2007 & Beyond: What Will You Create For Your Business, Career, and Life?: TELE-SEMINAR VERSION, May 9, 2007, 8:00pm Central, 9:00pm Eastern, and 6:00pm Pacific. (Visit Inspired Leap to sign up.)
Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: eWomen Network Luncheon presentation on May 23, 2007.

Imagine thinking a thought of an outcome you'd like to achieve and being able to manifest it quickly and with ease. What if the quote above by Stacey Hall and Jan Brogniez is true. What if?
Most of us have been raised with a strong work ethic that causes us to fight the notion that we don't have to struggle to earn something in order to deserve it or reap the rewards of achieving it. This work ethic is a deeply held belief within every fiber of our being and rules our behavior more than we might like it to. Wikipedia defines work ethic as "a set of values based on the moral virtues of hard work and diligence. It is also a belief in moral benefit of work and its ability to enhance character." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_ethic]

No wonder you and I might find it hard to swallow that we really can accomplish more by working less! Because of that, let's start with a fun example from a story I shared in my recent Envision 2007 workshops. Late December, 2006 I created a vision box that has images of goals I have for 2007. On the bottom of the box, I glued pictures of Hawaiian palm trees, a small map of the islands, and the words (cut out from a magazine) "pleasures" and "celebrating."

Early in February, I spent one evening on the internet checking out websites of resorts in Hawaii and Hawaiian travel packages. While looking, I decided that I wanted to take the trip in January/February 2008 because of fond memories of whale-watching off the coast of Maui in February during a vacation I took there roughly ten years earlier. This whole experience of daydreaming and looking at options was to get my imagination going because I didn't really know how I was going to make this trip happen.

The next day I received a call from a friend who is creating travel/retreat packages for women. She wanted me to be one of the key retreat leaders for a retreat/vacation she was putting together for January/February 2008 in Hawaii! I laughed out loud and told her about my box and being on the internet the night before.

Using this experience as an example, I did do some work to create this positive outcome, and I still need to keep holding the vision to make sure it all unfolds as planned. Yet, I didn't put together a detailed action plan of steps I needed to take to find a way to make this trip happen. I focused on what I wanted (in an enjoyable way) and left the details to the Universe. Of course, this is a fun example and so far it's working brilliantly because I haven't tried hard to make it work—I've let the universe take care of it.

My next step—and perhaps yours too—is to use this technique on bigger and more important business related ventures that, quite frankly, I have a lot more emotion invested in. Workshops are beginning to fill up this way for me—without a lot of hard work on my part. I still slip into the "work harder to make it happen" mode, but I'm slowly, but surely, putting more attention on this new way of working with very positive results. What if you could create more of what you want this way? How might your life be different if you did?

It's all about your beliefs. When I work with people on discerning when an inner message or feeling is intuition and when it's not, I ask them to imagine that their intuition is a "pure" idea, thought, or feeling that must run through the gauntlet of both conscious and unconscious beliefs and attitudes. Sometimes the intuitive "hit" is so powerful, the message is loud and clear with no distortion. Unfortunately, sometimes it gets watered down or distorted by strongly held beliefs. There are even studies that show we will deliberately block out intuitive information if it does not agree with our beliefs of what reality is or should be.

Science now tells us that beliefs are nothing more than thoughts we've thought about again and again until a strong neural pattern is created within our brain. This pattern is immediately activated when any thoughts or situations come into our experience that would call into question this pattern of thought. So when we try to eliminate a belief or pattern of thought, we only strengthen or activate it more.

I know there are many recommended programs or processes designed to eliminate old beliefs, but the best way might be to simply bring to conscious awareness the old belief and begin to create a new belief that slowly, but surely, begins to override your old pattern of thought. This is why creating affirmations and visualizations are so powerful. They are designed to replace old patterns of thought with new ones.

Sticking with our theme of working less to accomplish more, you might have a belief that says, "I need to work hard to achieve the financial success I want," or "in order to bring in more income, I need to work more hours." Now imagine changing that belief to, "I easily attract in ideas, people, and other resources to enable me to generate the income I desire while working only 30 hours a week." If you're working 70 hours a week, you might choose to change that sentence to 50 or 40 hours a week to start with.

Remember, as we've discussed in other newsletters, the key is to attach positive emotion or feelings to the statement or vision. We now know that memories and patterns of thought stored within the brain are charged with emotion. The stronger the emotion the more powerful the memory and the associated beliefs that go with that memory.

For all of you who aren't quite ready to let go of the idea that hard work helps you deserve the abundance or riches flowing into your life (or justifies your existance), take heart. You're not alone. As Joe Vitale stated in the opening quote, our egos have a strong tie to hard work. So let's work with that, instead of against it.

When you think about it, I'm not really asking you to work less. I'm asking you to work differently. Instead of spending time in intense physical or mental labor, I'm asking you to devote more time to imagining unseen hands and helpers guiding you to exactly what you need in order to achieve exactly what you want with less effort. Shift your hard work to visualizing, affirming, and meditating on what you want. Then, heed the wisdom of your intuition and take inspired action.

I love how Joe Vitale, President of Hypnotic Marketing, Inc., talks about this in his book, The Attractor Factor:

My friend looked confused. She asked, "What do you mean?" "If you try to figure out how you will get that new car, or that new house, or that new relationship, you'll limit yourself to what your ego can see and do," I explained. "Turn your goal over to your unconscious, which is connected to the spirit of everything and everyone, and let it bring the goal to you and you to the goal. Just follow your inner promptings, and act on the opportunities that come your way, and you'll get there." [p. 175, emphasis added]

How might today be different if you continuously checked in with yourself and "followed your inner promptings" and acted on opportunities that came your way?

There doesn't seem to be an end to the negative effects of too much stress and out-of-balanced lives on our bodies. The American Institute of Stress reports that 75 percent to 90 percent of all visits to health care practitioners are due to stress-related disorders. Yikes! I don't know about you, but much of my stress comes from thinking I have to do everything on my own, figure out all the next steps on my own, or make a lot of tough changes in my life in order to accomplish what I want.

What if none of that is true? By accepting that we are all connected because we are all energy, I realized that energetic connection enable me to place my order of what I want with the universe (via focused attention and positive emotion) and simply stay aware for when the appropriate opportunity presents itself. Wow! Now there's a way to quickly reduce stress and improve health without spending a dime. Could that approach work for you?

Just because you've got a strong belief about how work gets done and goals get accomplished doesn't mean that it's true. Play with the image and idea that unseen hands are ready and willing to do much of the work for you—guiding you to the right next steps and key people to enable what you want to flow to you with grace and ease.

If this image appeals to you and is a vision you'd like to "work" to achieve, I hope you'll join me and Misha Thomas out at The Crossings on Thursday, April 26th. We'll have fun creating new beliefs to get us all there a lot faster than if we tried to do it on our own. Join us!

If you just can't spare the time or investment, may you find the courage to take small steps to create new neural pathways in your brain about how much time and effort is required in order to create your ideal life.

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!).