How to create Effortless Effort !

Today I am discussing how to create effortless effort in your life !

In this episode I discuss how:

What is effortless effort ?
Societal beliefs that define effort and worth
Your relationship with effort and worth
How to change your relationship with yourself to work in a way that is easy and fun !

Show notes and the transcript can be found here: https://michellekevill.com/effortless

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, everyone, I hope you are well, and if not, I got you, at least you are here. I hope when I make that click, it doesn't sound too loud because sometimes I've really heard it. Once I've uploaded it and it sounds really loud, I'm like, Whoa, like shouting into someone's ear. Anyway, I am excited because today I am looking at wedding venues. This afternoon, we're getting planning already on that. I am excited. I'll be sharing more about that on my socials. But today I want to talk about effortless effort. I love this concept. My client actually said this and I was like, Oh my God, this is perfect. This is pefect. this is a podcast episode. This is absolutely perfect and in advance. I do want to apologize. There are some I'm recording in my room here, and there are some kids swimming around making a little bit of noise. I've played around with the game here, but you may hear a little kid, you know, randomly in the background, just having some fun here. And of course, it's a neutral circumstance. My brain has a lot of thoughts about this, but it's neutral and it's fine. And to be honest with you, when I'm listening to other people's podcasts from overseas, I actually love hearing some of the ambient noises. So some people in America who live in like New York and you get to hear like taxicabs and all that and. I don't know.

[00:01:29] Maybe you'll find it really cool, but anyway, let's get into it, so what am I talking about today around effortless effort? It's really what it what it means, which is effort that feels effortless and what it really is is actually redefining what effort is. So just googled it and effort is defined as a vigorous or determined attempt that sounds very hard and not very fun. And it's how do you make that into something that's really nice and easy? How do you change a definition and where did this come from? If you've heard my earlier episodes again on the Early Industrial Revolution, which I really feel defined work at that time as a lot of effort because it was a lot of manual labour, it was human labour. It was in the very essence that definition of a vigorous and determined attempt. And I still believe as a society, we have still taken that on into the 21st century, and we believe that doing lots of things is effort is like getting stuff done. Not necessarily. You can do a whole heap of shit and get nothing done. You could just do busy work whereas doing things. And I talk about this before more efficiently, more smarter, using our prefrontal cortex to create value. Creating value with less effort. That is what I feel. 21st Century What like work is now more inclined to because I work way less in my corporate job, right? And I even got promoted, and that is because I stopped.

[00:03:20] In short, I basically stopped doing a whole heap of unnecessary shit. What I mean by that is like, give you an example. I was just taking on too much work for me to handle. So even though I'm doing a lot of work, I'm not producing the value because I'm not working at my most, you know, fittest optimized performance because I'm doing so much and it wasn't taking breaks. So even though I'm doing a lot of things, I'm not doing it effectively. The problem is, we still think if I just do a heap of shit and get it out, then you know, like, I'm doing work and I'm like, I'm doing things, I'm et cetera. Whereas really, you could be doing less and you could be working smarter, such as taking breaks. You know, this is a very basic summary here. But like I would, you know, start to calendar out my time, I'd start to my brain would be like, I really want to work on this thing because the other thing is boring, but that boring thing is due. First, I'd start kind of training my brain a little bit more. And I noticed I started to produce more work faster, but with less effort, which makes no sense. But it does now when we use our prefrontal cortex like another metaphor for this is if our brains are like computers, what you could be doing now is running a whole heap of programs at once, but your brain only has a limited amount of RAM and RAM is used to lack, you know, the Moremi have more you can like do stuff right.

[00:04:55] But humans are not robots again, and they have a limited set. But you're running so many programs. And if you've seen a computer on a computer when you run like a whole heap of stuff or if you have like just, you know, like an old computer, for example, it's really, really slow. Whereas if you ran less programs, right, like just say, one program, it's going to run it a lot faster because it's not so spread out again. Human brains have a certain level of capacity, and we need to work within it. We need to sometimes restart our laptop, take a break, restart our own mini computers and brains and stuff so we can keep working efficiently. And this is where we need to take. We need to change the notion of what effort is. Effort does not need to be fucking painful. And what I see a lot in my clients, especially ones who are entrepreneurs that have their own business, including myself, because I used to do this is they start to make it really hard for themselves because that's all they know. That's what they used to. I notice I started to do this pattern where I almost was turning my life coaching business into what my corporate job was before coaching, and I was just hustling all the time.

[00:06:23] And what I noticed was when I pulled away, like all these clients would come to me and reach out to me, and I was like, what? That makes no sense. I'm doing less work, but it's an energy thing. I'm restarting my laptop. I'm showing up differently. I was like, I'm getting it now. I needed to flip that switch. Less is fucking more. I swear to God, you don't think that because you have this belief that no, no, no. I need to do more, especially if you're very like for me. I can get really jittery sometimes. And it's like all this anxiety and sometimes doing things is a way to buffer from that. And so I have like a whole episode on over cleaning because you can do a lot of cleaning, but then you can miss out on other things as well. And I used to do that all the time, and something really key that I have seen in myself and my clients is that. If it is hard and if it's hard, it is worthy and valuable. I'm going to say that again, effort is hard and if it's hard, then the task the thing you are doing is worthy and valuable. What if I told you it's like the matrix red blue blue pill here? That isn't true, but the opposite is fucking true. What if I told you it could be worthy and valuable your business, whatever you're doing in your life, and it doesn't need to be hard? And it doesn't need to be this painful effort.

[00:07:54] What if what you're doing and working on could be light and easy? And that is when real growth happens, when you're able to work for your own laptop, your own ram, your own specs, right? Because we're humans, not robots. You want to work in a way that suits you, not the way that society is telling you to work or for whatever you sit there and believe like I did, which is just work from eight o'clock to 10 p.m. at night like that is hard, and that is worthy. And that is good. And I'm getting output vs. flip that I work less now, but I actually got promoted because I worked. I was providing more value. I'm not burning myself on 20 ends. I don't have 20 programs up, like open in my brain. If I'm, I'm using the laptop metaphor here, right? I don't have 20 tabs open or 20 programs going at once trying to run them all. I'm running like one or two programs at once and I'm getting them done faster and more efficiently, and I'm having time to run software in my brain to clean things up, right? I don't know. I have a thing on my computer. It's called like CC cleanup. It's basically like cleans all the junk, basically in your laptop.

[00:09:07] Like that boosts performance. That's like humans, like taking breaks, taking time out, like, Oh my god, that actually boosts performance for yourself. And I'm telling you now you can do that and it's weed. It feels weed. But I talk. I say this all the time. Everything I teach you is just the opposite of what life has told you. You are able to create effortless effort. Firstly, what you want to do is you want to understand all your beliefs and thoughts that you have around effort and what you make it mean. And it's interesting because I had no idea about this until I got coached one on one by my own coach that I was making my business hard. She's like, You're making a business so hard, like, you are not enjoying it because I was I started to not enjoy my business as much and I couldn't. I just had no idea why. I'm like, Maybe because I'm overworking myself in my business. And it was like, Well, why are you making it hot? I'm making it hard because I, you know, deep down, I love my business. But I had this belief that in order for it to be worthwhile, it needs to be hard. And if it's not hard, then what's the fucking point? And it's changing that concept. What if something could be really light, easy but also challenging, and I use the metaphor of like a video game for me.

[00:10:30] I love playing video games, right? And I wouldn't say video games are hard for me, I'd say they're challenging and I like that. I like that there are hot like us, little hotter here. But you know what I mean, more challenging levels, you know? I like that. I have to think strategically or if I, you know, die in the game, it's like, OK, I need to take this route. That's the same. Like, I needed to apply the concepts that I do with video games into my own job. I needed to make it more fun again. I needed to be like, Hey, I can. I can make this effortless, still grow and it can be valuable. But I had to unlearn a lot of that. A lot of that was still under there. Just like, Nope, if you want this to be a profitable business, it has to be hard because that's what we've been taught and like for it to be worthy and a good thing. It has to be hard, right? Here's another thing I want to add to that around. It has to be hard. Worthy and valuable is people don't realize that things can be easy and worthy. I see this so much. I used to see it myself and I see so much in my clients. It's almost like, but if it's easy, then it means nothing. And it's like. But what if you were just so fucking gifted at the thing you're doing that it's easy.

[00:11:47] And now I know your brain is going to freak out and be like, But no, then it's not worthy and valuable. Blah blah blah. Like, it doesn't mean anything that's bullshit. That is complete fucking bullshit, OK? You are totally allowed to feel like what's happened in society is that we had also taught at a really young age. Like, I'll give you an example. When I was little, I really wanted to be an actor and I used to do acting, actually. I was in a couple of commercials and I said that to my parents when I'm like six and my parents were like, No, do not do that is like no money in it. It's really, really hard. It's really challenging and like, look, you know, no, no hate on them. They're just being my parents, you know, trying to look out for me and stuff like that. But there's always this talk that it's almost like you can't do what you love and make money. You know, you can't actually do what you really want in life. You have to do the really, really hard things versus embracing your gifts, embracing what you enjoy. And that takes a lot of unlearning it did for me because for coaching, I'm coaching is so fucking natural for me. I do this after my corporate job right at night I have coaching sessions and on the weekends I love it.

[00:12:59] It's not a drain for me, like it's because people are like, Oh, how do you do it all? I'm like, pretty, pretty easily. I love coaching like the hard stuff, which I'm still learning is like managing the business side, like social media and like, you know, marketing and all that. That's a process that I'm learning, but coaching in itself. Fuck, I am so energized off to that. I absolutely love it. And my brain was like, But that isn't hard, so it's not worthy and valuable. And you know, you can't make money from it. And it was just like, this whole was like, What? It's like that is a thought. I did not even realize it was occurring until I was with my coach one on one, and I'm like, Oh, like, this is holding me back in my business. Like, I really need to work on this, and I'm telling you right now, really, really, do the work on this really understand what is effort to you? How are you making things that you enjoy so well, such as like cooking or drawing or anything, you know, because it's easy that it's not effort because they're your fucking gifts and you should bloody appreciate them. More people should be doing that when you're in your element, like really embracing that. Like, how amazing is it that you could like? You can provide that to society? Like, I think I've said this before, I have clients who showed me their drawings and they look like photos.

[00:14:17] I'm like, How amazing that you just have this natural ability to do this and you can, like, make a ton of money off this. I'm like, Oh, but it's easy. I'm like, Who cares? Great that it's easy. This is a gift that you have. Share it. Celebrate it. That's allowed people. I'm giving you that fucking permission. Give yourself permission to embrace your amazing gifts. And if you want to choose that as a career path and make money off it. And yes, well, OK, yeah, it's it will be challenging. Sure, I'm doing my own business with a corporate job. And because when you've worked in corporate write, all the branding is done by the corporation. Now I'm the corporation. I have to brand myself. That is that is challenging. But before I used to make it hard, now I see it as challenging, like a video game. I'm like, OK, let's try this. Oh, this seems to work. All these types of posts kind of, you know, work this type of stuff, like if that makes sense, you just you just playing around with it. I'm experimenting. So what I want you to do is, again, explore your thoughts, et cetera, yada yada yada. But here is a great little tip that you can do right now that is going to help you start to create effortless effort in your business. I want you to ask yourself, how can I create more downtime in, you know, x whatever you're doing, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're in corporate, like, how can I create more downtime? How can I make effortless effort? How can I make this fun? How can I make this light and easy? Now, you know, probably hearing this like the fuck are you going on about Michelle? Hear me out.

[00:15:59] When you give your brain a little mini task, it'll actually start to think of things and just let it marinate. Just, you know, ask yourself like once a day, just that question. Let it marinate and your brain will do subconscious, will literally eat that, soak on it and spit something out. It'll be like a couple of days later. It's like, Well, what if we try this, then do the thing? It could be that you're pushing yourself and like, this is what I used to do is to push myself really hard. I used to take absolutely psychotic and I do. I cannot believe I did not see this. I was doing exactly what I did in my corporate job. I didn't really have too many breaks on the weekend between coaching clients and then working on my business, just like, you know, the branding and the marketing and all that. And I just would ask myself, like, how can I do this with joy and ease? And it's like, Well, maybe I could have more breaks.

[00:16:50] Like, maybe I could take a two hour nap. See what happens? My brain would flip it shit. It's like, we can't take a fucking nap. No, and it's so interesting. When I took a nap and I restarted my software, oh my God, like, I was able to get things done so much more faster, I was able to change things up. So I've started writing just a quick couple of notes for my podcast episodes, and now I just record them and my my god. My social media posts have changed completely. It used to take me forever. Now I just I just get out. I just after this, I'm going to write them up. Let's go write up my posts. Just a whole heap information like I just it's intuitive. That has taken time, but it's looking at ways of how can I make it more fun? Like, How can I change it up? Ok. This is painful for me. How do I change it? How do I do it? And that is how you create effortless effort, that is how you create more value in the world by doing less. I swear to you this is true because I am seeing it in real time in my own business and I saw it in my corporate job. Like I'm telling you, I'm doing less now. But I get so much more done, so much more value, it's so much quicker because I'm working in a way that suits me.

[00:18:07] And you can do that as well, whether it be your corporate job, your own business, when you work in a way that suits you and you make it fun. That is when the magic happens. Like, you were stunting your growth. Otherwise, the magic happens when you let yourself work the way that suits you. And it's hard to unlearn that, I know, because my brain did this originally with this corporate job. Then when the mine drama went to that, it just sneakily went into my life coaching business and started to do it there. And I had to unlearn all that because I had all these beliefs about this is what a business is, is what value is yada yada yada. But I have seen the evidence I'm a fully booked coach, and that happened when I pulled away from my business when I started to do less because I was showing up differently. So I encourage you to do your same. Ask yourself those questions, see what you come up with and experiment you if your brain's like. I want to take a two hour break and that's too much. Maybe take like a 30 minute break and then see what happens. Play around with it. Experiment. Make it fun. Ok, that is all for today. But again, if you want help with this. Reach out to me. I'd love to have a consult. Call with you. Let's see if we're a good fit in. How I can help you. All right. See you guys.