Ms. Goalypants

Hey there, Ms. Goaly-pants. Ease up.

If January (and all its goal-setting hoohaw) is sitting hard on your heart, then here is a reframe.

Relax. Breathe.

Most of us tend to overcomplicate everything because we’re driven by lack-thinking. And so we spend our days trying to be super on top of everything so nothing bad will happen. It’s frickin’ exhausting.

Now add those new January goals to the list. Arggh! Do you see why you don’t keep them?

The idea of living in a state of ease has become an ideal for most of us. Instead, it’s all: Goals! Work! Goals! Work!

Letting go and trusting Flow is apparently only what you get to do when you retire. (As in: hard work, frustration, and sacrifice now . . . ease later.)

Overcommitted exhaustion and continuously feeling behind or “not as good as”become the default energies that show up in every area of our life. And, instead of ending up successful, we end up burned out, cranky, unhealthy, and often with lower self-esteem than when we started.

Here’s the email that provoked this thought in me:

“Merry Christmas! I want to buy one of your Flowdreams, “Everything Is Easy in My Life,” for nine of my private clients. I want to stay in integrity and not just buy it once – since I already bought it for me. Do I buy it nine times on the site? Any suggestions would be received! Thx so much.”

Thank you, Allyson, not just for being a coach with such integrity, but because you clearly understand one of the most fundamental and life-changing aspects of Flow that your clients love you for: You can and should make your life be easier if you want to be more successful.

Allyson (a M.E. School student) has aligned to one of my ongoing, driving teachings: expect ease.

If there is ONE THING you can accomplish in 2016, it should be to fully expect ease even in the most challenging of projects, and thereby master something wondrous and life-changing.

Being able to allow and expect ease means, essentially, that you’ve completely rid yourself of lack-thinking. It will not mean you’re unprepared or ungrounded. You can (and should) be both prepared and grounded as your anticipate what all your projects need. Let me explain.

We A-types typically have massive trust issues in our world. That’s why we control the heck out of it. And if we let one little bit of control go, we fear that something will go wrong, get off course, and generally just get screwed up. In other words, we manifest from a point of lack-from a feeling that if we don’t step in and control everything constantly, everything will get all screwed up.

What’s more, we’ve probably done really well following this model. Maybe we’ve built some wealth, or a business. Maybe we have a high-performing superstar family. Maybe we’re decorated with prizes and honors for all our charitable work.

On the flip side, we’re really, super tired. We hit a wall in our success and have stalled out, and we don’t know how to go past it. We can’t do MORE. We already have no time, no balance, and maybe our body is even breaking down.

This when controllers come to me, seeking Flow. They ask, “How do I give up a model that’s made me successful, even though I’ve hit the limit of this model?”

Silicon Valley types talk about this as the point when an entrepreneur has to shift from being the hands-on CEO to learning a whole different way of running a company. The hands-on CEO, whose finger is in every pot, begins to be a bottleneck. Growth stalls. To grow past it, they have to LET GO. It can be really hard of you don’t have the tools, because you have to build trust in a whole new area.

This same pattern holds true for all of us. We master one way of growing that leads us to “complete a level.” Then we have to learn a new model to get to the next field of growth.

This next field is one of ease and trust. And to a controller, this is about the hardest thing we can do.

And yet, this is what Flow is all about. And you can begin integrating Flow anytime-you don’t need to wait for frustration, burnout, or overload. In fact, if you wait until you hit the ceiling of success using your familiar control model, you’re almost certain to be burned out by the time you have to shift anyway to the next level.

To integrate Flow, you have to begin playing with this idea of ease. As in asking yourself this critical question every day, in everything you do:

“How can I make this easy?”

Notice that this is a different question than, “How can I cut corners?” or “ How can I work less hard or be lazy?”

It means that whenever you feel any wall of resistance, you stop and ask yourself one simple question:

How can I make this easy?

Go ahead, ask it now about something that’s feeling hard, overwhelming, or which you’re dreading for any reason.

How can I make this easy?

Notice how you feel when you say that. Notice what thoughts surround the idea. Do you feel like you’re cheating? Do you feel like it won’t happen, and you’ll still have to swoop in and picked up dropped balls? Feel how your lack of trust erupts. Feel how your lack-thinking erupts.

This is why tacking control is a true game-changer.

You want to move to the next field of expansion. You want balance. You want the Universe to help you and smooth the way. You want things to be frictionless and free of obstacles. You want the Special Sauce that successful people you admire seem to have. You want to learn through experiencing success, not failure.

To do this, you have to become a Mistress (or Master) of Ease.

(Incidentally, this is one of the lessons we go into deeply in M.E. School. Interested? Learn more here.)

This year, I saw Flowdreaming expand exponentially as a company. I doubled my staff, taught multiple classes of M.E. Schoolers, stayed present for my family, AND battled malignant breast cancer. How could I have done this, if I hadn’t made the shift to ease?  What’s more, what price tag would I put on this ability?

For me, my life has no price tag. I’d have paid anything to learn to do this.

Because looking forward, I realize I’ve cultivated a whole new level of relationship with my Flow. Now, I expect to work hard because I like to work hard, like a hiker who loves to move and sweat and reach their goal. But I don’t like obstacles. And I don’t need to race off path into the rocky, difficult undergrowth.

I like to work hard in the palm of ease, the hand of Flow. I’m learning to release control just as easily as I take control. I have a partner in the Universe. And I have trust in BOTH processes.

Struggling entrepreneurs, coaches, and all over-controllers haven’t learned to trust ease. They fear it. They, in some respects, fear their life and what may happen, and so they control the hell out of it.

This is lack-thinking at its most insidious. If this is truly how you feel, then Flow will give you every circumstance to uphold this belief. You chose it, so Flow delivers it.

I invite you to stop doing this right now. Don’t wait until you max out. Learn now how successful people think and act. And I mean those successful people one or two rungs “above” you-the ones who’ve mastered the ability to be a raving, screaming success and still have time for vacations, family, their body, and anything else they do that keeps them in stress-free balance.

My Diamonds all learn this from me from the get-go when I begin personally working with them. My job is often to remind them over and over whenever they move from ease to lack, until it becomes entrenched. I spot it for them, until they learn to spot it themselves. Ditto for my M.E. Schoolers.

So if you truly want to make a giant leap this year (not just outwardly in your life, but internally, spiritually, and in your connection to Everything), then learn ease. Learn trust. Learn Flow.

It’s not woo-woo. It’s the next “Silicon Valley Management Level” for your soul, and your life.

What do you think about this? Are you ready to live in a state of effective, aligned ease? Do you even believe that you can? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Post below.