Accessing Effortless Action: A Practical Guide

This talk goes over how to access Effortless Action, a state where things flow naturally without any exertion. While this idea is already talked about quite a bit in Daoism in the concept of wu-wei, here I’ll offer 3 different perspectives: 1. Tapping into higher energy states: Power vs Force, abundance, upward vs downward spirals. 2. How to make things easy: tips from the book called "Effortless" by author Greg McKeown). 3. Noticing your specific lane in life

Transcript

Hey,

This is Ishar,

And in today's talk,

I'll be going over how to access effortless action,

And I'll be sharing with you some things I've learned to tap into this effortless state.

And in this state,

The right actions flow naturally,

Without much exertion needed,

And a lot of results come very easily in this state.

And I'm sure you can relate to moments in your life where you experienced this sort of flow state,

In which things were very easy,

And also the opposite of this,

Where you were exerting a lot of effort into something,

Trying really hard,

But ended up not really producing much,

And also burning yourself out and getting less out of your output.

So how can we tap into this former state of being effortless?

So this topic is talked about quite a bit in both the Western world of self-development and personal growth,

And also in Eastern spirituality.

In Taoism,

For example,

They talk about wu-wei,

Which is effortless action.

But in this talk,

I'll be going over three different perspectives in which you can understand how to access this.

The first thing I'll be talking about is how to tap into higher energy states,

Which make it more accessible for this natural way of being to occur.

Number two,

I'll be talking about how to make things easy for yourself.

And number three,

How to notice your specific lane in life.

And if you're in the wrong lane in life,

You may be climbing an unnecessary uphill battle.

So let's start off with the first perspective on learning about energy and how we can access higher energy states.

Now,

There are many different models of understanding this.

So a few can include Levels of Energy by Fred Dodson,

And I've actually made a separate video on that.

There's also the Map of Consciousness Scale by David Hawkins,

And he's also written a book called Power Versus Force.

And in all these models,

They talk about how there's a range of frequencies that a human can reside in habitually.

And where you are on this specific range or scale predicts the types of beliefs you may have,

The types of people that you may be surrounded with,

The types of emotions that you may feel on a day-to-day basis.

And that is within a specific range.

And emotions,

Places and viewpoints that are far away from your habitual way of being can be harder to access or even out of your sight completely.

So where we put our attention to can also predict how much effort is needed.

So generally speaking,

When you are in a downward spiral or in a low energy state of being on the scale,

Then you may be controlled by different forces like fear,

Anger and lethargy.

And when you're in these states,

There tends to be a lot of force and effort that is needed to get things done.

And you may waste a lot of energy in these low vibration or low energy states,

Battling with your mind or battling with other people.

And it's quite exhausting because you're fighting an uphill battle.

And as you rise in energy states,

You experience these what we call higher vibration states such as gratitude,

Peace and joy.

And in these higher vibration states,

You tend to let go of a lot of things in life that don't serve you,

Such as negativity and resistance.

And when you let go of the things that drag you down,

There's a natural well-being that influences your life.

And in fact,

The core of all contemplative practices has an element of letting go of these mental disturbances that keep you from being very present and experiencing happiness in the here and now.

And right now,

You can even give yourself permission to simply forget about the past and future and just breathe in and out.

And in this moment,

You might feel just a bit better.

There's nothing to do and nothing to focus on.

And your mind becomes more and more calm.

And this gives you a subtle hint of these states in which there isn't much effort needed.

You don't need to climb a certain ladder.

You don't need to force yourself to do things.

Rather,

You can relax into the moment and start to ascend into these positive states of being,

Which is actually very natural for you.

Now,

From a spiral point of view,

So an upward spiral or downward spiral,

When you start to tap into these higher states or abundant states or upward states of being,

You freely give to others.

You tend to contribute more and give more rather than consume or take.

You're generally in a positive state of being.

It's easy for you to be grateful for what you have.

And you're more focused on the positives and the upsides of things,

Rather than looking at what is constantly wrong.

And when you're constantly residing in these states,

There is a flow where you receive,

Where you're enjoying life.

And life tends to get better and better and more easeful.

So in these states,

There's more power that you have and less force.

You don't need to push so hard,

But things naturally happen for you and unfold.

So how can you access these higher vibration states?

Well,

There are many different ways.

So one of them is by letting go.

And this can be done through meditation,

Journaling,

Yoga,

Relaxing anytime you feel a mental tightening or tension.

And you can take on practices that elicit more of a quote-unquote high vibration state.

So you can practice gratitude,

You can do loving kindness meditations,

You can give to others,

You can practice sharing.

And these things touch upon these higher states of being.

And over time,

You will habitually reside in these states.

So that's the first perspective on energetics and how to get into these higher energetic states.

Now,

The second perspective is to make things easy.

And a great book I've recently read is Effortless by Greg McCone.

And in this book,

He has a lot of great tips on how to make things simpler in life.

And one thing he talks about is instead of thinking about why a certain task that you have to do is so hard,

Instead,

Reframe it and think,

How can I make this easy?

So in the book,

The author goes over an example in which he has to make a lot of phone calls,

And which he didn't want to do.

So he kept pushing it off.

And then he thought,

How can I make this enjoyable?

So for him,

He decided to take his phone calls while sitting in a pool and just relaxing.

And it actually became so enjoyable,

That he wanted to make even more calls afterwards.

So that's just one example.

And he also offers a lot of different tips throughout the book.

So another one is,

Don't overexert yourself today,

Where you can't recover the next day.

Instead of doing a lot and burning yourself out,

You are creating this long term progress of steady effort.

So it is preferable to make slow and steady progress over time rather than burning yourself out through a rush of effort.

Another great tip he talks about in the book is that not everything needs the extra mile.

So just focus on delivering what is needed,

Without adding more.

Because this can not only be distracting,

When you add unnecessary layers to your project or work.

But it can also make it overwhelming for you to even get started in the first place,

Because you've created all this additional criteria that you have to complete.

Instead,

Just keep things very simple.

And this was very eye opening for me and something I've learned from personal experience.

Because over a year ago,

If you look at my videos,

I had put in a lot of extra effort in what I was doing.

So I had all my videos in a video format,

And I had added graphics and different transitions.

And in addition to making YouTube videos,

I would also reformat it for a vertical format and upload it on TikTok or Instagram Reels.

And I'd also cross post it on Facebook,

And then take the track and put it on Insight Timer.

And basically,

I was just doing way too much for a very simple task of simply just conveying a message in my talks.

And in fact,

I had started to do so much that I burned myself out and ended up deleting my Instagram and not deleting my TikTok.

And I was just like,

I was just totally fed up.

So recently,

I had then started to implement after reading these books on simplifying my life,

This new method of starting to make more audio talks,

And simply just conveying my point.

And what I found is that this new method of making these talks was actually way more sustainable for me.

It felt very relaxing.

And I was able to produce more over time.

And I didn't feel very overwhelmed.

So I was able to produce steady and consistent effort over time.

And all because I've just reduced and simplified a lot of things that were unnecessary within this process.

So it is much better to,

Again,

Coming back to that point of producing the small and consistent effort over time,

Rather than doing everything all at once,

Burning yourself out,

And just giving up after a while.

Now,

The third perspective I'd like to go over is finding your lane.

So one thing I'd ask you is that if you're constantly struggling at something,

Are you simply doing something that isn't right for you?

So we all have different strengths,

Aptitudes,

Areas of interest,

Unique advantages.

And there are some things in life that tend to be more aligned with the combination of these things than others.

And of course,

You can grow from things that are very hard for you.

And in fact,

That can give you leverage to push ahead compared to other people.

But you may find that if you're doing something that you're not very interested in,

Or just don't really see a payoff,

Then you'll tend to be climbing an uphill battle.

And you'll tend to struggle a lot.

And you could instead find different lanes that are more suited to you,

And you can still grow,

Because you can still grow in any single field.

But there are certain paths that require less of this resistance,

Where things just feel very unnatural for you.

So this is something I've observed in my life,

Where I put my attention to a lane that wasn't right for me,

It was always like climbing an uphill battle.

Whereas where I was doing something that was aligned to my natural strengths,

Aptitudes,

And interests,

Things tend to go easy.

And obviously,

There is still challenges and everything.

But it's a different kind of challenge that doesn't have the tightening and uphill battle component to it.

So for example,

If you notice my personality,

You may notice that I like to relax a lot,

Have an interest in helping and guiding others,

I'm almost never in a rush to do anything,

My mind is always thinking about different new ideas.

And I'm also not very crazy ambitious or anything that.

So with these traits I've just mentioned,

There are many different places,

And jobs and careers,

For example,

Where it always felt like an uphill battle for me.

So for example,

Anytime I was in a fast moving restaurant job,

For example,

Like being a bartender,

Or barback,

Or server,

I did awful at these jobs.

And in fact,

I was fired from almost every single one of them.

And likewise,

In any competitive,

Heavy metrics oriented corporate sales jobs,

I just did awful in these kind of positions also,

While everyone was totally jazzed about,

You know,

Crushing their metrics and really pushing ahead and getting all energized.

I'm just like,

Man,

I don't really care.

So there are also places where my quote unquote weaknesses in these areas were actually seen as huge strengths in other fields.

So for example,

Being very slow moving,

Very chill,

Relaxed,

And highly creative and meditative is actually a huge strength and advantage in say,

Teaching yoga,

Or making YouTube videos,

Or serving tea.

And these are all positions,

For example,

Where instead of sending out like 100 applications and really trying hard to get in,

Get my foot in the door and get these positions and struggling and climbing this uphill battle.

Most of the times,

These places like yoga studios,

Or different viewers,

Or tea places actually asked me to,

You know,

Work there or produce content or teach there.

And when I was in these environments,

I brought a lot of passion,

Absolutely loved what I was doing,

And had great working relationships with everyone and things are just great.

Now,

Of course,

Like everything else,

There'll be challenges.

So I may have a challenging student that I'm teaching,

For example,

Or perhaps different roadblocks in making these talks,

Or perhaps maybe I'm not knowledgeable in a certain,

You know,

Aspect of a career.

So these things are all very normal,

But they never felt like a chore or an uphill battle or struggle.

Rather,

I was very interested and passionate.

And things just seem to flow and I was in an abundance in these types of environments.

Compared to other environments,

Which weren't in my particular lane.

So one thing you can do is to take an audit of your life to see how much of your life is spent placing your attention in lanes that aren't right for you,

Or lanes that are right for you.

And also look at what are your natural strengths?

What do you do really well?

What do you like doing?

What is something you can grow from?

And what is something you can also teach others to?

So start to think about all these different things and what are some weaknesses in one area that can actually be a strength somewhere else.

So I hope you like this talk on tapping into this effortless state of being.

And just as a recap,

You can tap into these states by accessing the higher energy states of being or higher vibration states of being.

And in these states of being,

Things naturally flow to you very easily and you're very abundant.

And the second thing is to think about how you can simplify and make things easy for yourself rather than exerting extra effort and making your life very difficult.

And lastly,

Notice your specific lane in life and take an audit of what you do well or at least what you're interested in and highly passionate about.

And notice whether the trajectory of life is aligned with these things.

Are you placing your attention in places where it always feels like an uphill battle?

Or are things just naturally progressing in an easeful and happy manner and unfolding naturally?

So start to think about these things.

Thank you for listening to this talk.