Welcome to episode five of the Unlock Your Life podcast. I’m your host Lori Harris. This episode is for the hard workers, the do-gooders, the change makers, the ones who want to make a difference in the world. Want to do more good? Want to have more impact? Here’s the secret. Stop trying harder. Stop trying harder and change the way you change the world.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Hey fam, hey. Welcome back. I’m so glad to be back with you. I get to go to a conference today. It’s the first time I’ve been to an in-person event in a very long time, 18 months. I will get to meet some of my business besties, work with my mentor, and get reenergized and reinspired to come back to doing more and better work. It’s going to be a good one. Now, let’s talk about effort and the effort that is required to live your dreams and have the life that you absolutely love to make welcome. Let’s talk about it.

First, a story. This is a story inspired by the one told by Price Pritchett in his book You2. So there’s this small fly. He is wasting away the last little bit of their very short life. He’s on a windowsill, and he’s pushing all of his life force against the windowpane. He sees outside and he wants outside. So he’s pushing and pushing and pushing against the glass windowpane, but it’s not working. He has only one plan, one strategy. Try harder. His effort for survival is doomed to fail because trying harder is not going to get him what he wants.

Across the room, just a few steps away, the door is open. Ten seconds of flight and this little, tiny creature could move to the outside world that it seeks. With only a little bit of effort, it could free himself of the trap that he’s created for himself. Breakthrough is right around the corner. It could be so easy, but the fly won’t even try. Won’t try a different approach. It is committed to pushing against this windowsill. So it’s going to die. While it makes sense to the fly, it’s the idea that’s going to kill it.

Trying harder isn’t always the solution, isn’t always the way to get more. Sometimes trying harder is, in fact, the problem. Sometimes trying harder will keep you from what you want and what you will call success. So while it is hard to believe, maybe very difficult for you to believe, the key to your success might actually be to stop trying harder. Stop trying harder to get what you want.

So in our community, black and brown people, often we’re told you have to try twice as hard to get half as much. That effort usually gets us fairly far. We keep pushing, pushing, pushing. We show up where we’re expected not to be. We make the political statement in classrooms where we’re not welcome, where people assume that our presence is the result of some special program rather than merit.

We keep showing up over and over again. We get used to being one of one or one of very few. We put up walls around ourselves, and we develop what I call a by hook or by crook attitude. We know we can make things happen. So come hell or highwater, I’m going to get what I want. It’s going to be sheer effort that gets me there.

That is our hustle culture. That is the way to make things happen. Oftentimes we can become busy. Busy, busy, busy. Busy doing things, but not necessarily the right things and not necessarily the things that are going to result in what we really want.

So you’ve tried by hook or by cook, come hell or highwater. What about trying easy? What if it could be easy? Ask yourself a different question. What if it could be easy? What if it could be fun? Wouldn’t it be cool if? Let yourself marinate in that. Second, think about what do you really want right now in this moment that’s a way of caring for yourself, of feeling good about yourself and with yourself and in yourself.

So I’m going to ask you to go towards the things that look like fun, go towards the things that look like joy, go towards the things that look like rest. In so doing, taking care of yourself no longer by hook or by crook, hell or highwater, or pushing up that stone like Sisyphus. If you give that up, discover how good it feels to take care of you.

So maybe fun looks like intellectual stimulation. Maybe it looks like physical intimacy with another person or by yourself. That works too. Maybe it’s actual sexual stimulation. Maybe it’s getting out in nature. Maybe it’s just having a really good cup of tea. Sometimes that Netflix binge is exactly what you need to push the reset button.

I invite you to get in touch with luxury. What would feel really good? Like an indulgence? Like something that you don’t normally do for yourself, but when you do it for yourself it feels special. It feels good. You feel special. Because when we start allowing ourselves to experience more pleasure, new ideas come to us. We live on a different vibrational tone, and we are attracted and attractive to different things.

So I want to invite you to invite luxury into your life. Invite rest. When’s the last time you got some rest? Invite rest into your life, and stop thinking about, “I’m going to keep pushing, pushing, pushing and making this happen.” Because ideas come on a different frequency when you’re living from a do less attitude. Do less and I’m still worthy. Do less and I can still have more. I can have more if I’m willing to invest in myself. If I’m willing to invest the time, invest the thought, invest in what looks risky.

Turning away from what you’ve already known can seem risky, but you’re already at risk. If you continue to operate from this high stress peak, peak level, it does a number on our bodies. Our bodies can only tolerate so much go, go, go, push, push, push. There’s an opposite to push. There’s fall in, allow, go with the flow. If you allow that to happen, you welcome more peace. If you don’t, then you can see your dreams start to symptomize from not making the effort, from not taking the time, and from not leaning into that which is yours by design.

So I invite you to do a cleanup. Clean up your mind, declutter your space, and see what happens. Make room for something more beautiful in your life. So declutter. Declutter your mind, declutter your space. Look for places that you can have regular pleasure in your life. Don’t eat over the kitchen sink. Don’t just stand in front of the refrigerator stuffing yourself. Sit down and have a meal. Be good to yourself. Invite more pleasure in the simple things that are in your life.

Maybe you can add some music. Maybe you will take a bath. I hate the bath reference because it oversimplifies for some people, and it doesn’t work. You can take a bath. It’s the symbolism of taking time. I have a friend who says she loves to make sure that her showers are productive. So in the shower, she stops to really enjoy her body wash. To see the bodywash going onto her body and soothing each little pore of her arms and legs, and to really spend time with herself. Making every part of her bathing experience a sensual experience.

Bathing, showering can be special for you. You want to invite more pleasure into your life and see what happens. You want to eat with attentiveness, and then invite movement into your life so that you are reminded that you have a body, and it does great things. There’re all these incredible thousand thousands of parts that work together in harmony to make your life work really well.

So we’re decluttering our mind, we’re decluttering our closet, we’re decluttering our workspace, and then we are employing the power of our own desire. We look our desire in the eye, and then we make moves towards it in a different way. In a way that we have never done before that doesn’t involve hard work but is in flow. Perhaps you delegate and get someone to do some tasks for you so you can clear your mind for greater creativity.

Working hard won’t always get you there. Stop trying harder. Make your dream life welcome. Now, for an affirmation. Like a river, I love to be in flow. Like a river, I love to be in flow.

Well fam, that’s it for today. You’ve reached the end of the Unlock Your Life podcast.  To celebrate the launch of this new program, I’m giving away a soft cushy Unlock Your Life hoodie. I’m giving it to five lucky listeners who follow, rate, and review this show. It doesn’t have to be a five-star review, but I would love your honest feedback so I can create a really great show that gives you some value.

Visit loriaharris.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the podcast and how you can enter. I’ll be announcing the winners very soon in an upcoming episode. Until next time, it’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.