Something to consider on a Sunday night…

Posted on by philipdodson

Don’t work hard, work deep.

Hard work, as in working silly long hours, not allowing ourselves any break, driving ourselves relentlessly to get stuff done and to be seen by others as hard-working is not hard work it is ego-driven behaviour to match a story we are telling ourselves and self-image we want the world to see.

Anything of real value in life requires commitment, dedication and sacrifice of easy and shallow things, however, it is deep work that matters not hard work.

We can achieve work of the highest value that matters to us and others by committing to a few hours of deep work each day rather than this false notion of hard work. If we work deeply, and in a focused state for a few hours, we then have the rest of our time to focus on the other things in life. The stuff that really matters…like doing the things we truly love to do and spending time with the people who deeply matter to us.

Hard work that is all-consuming damages our mental and physical health, It prohibits us from doing the things that really matter, and as we all have a finite amount of concentration to be able to do high-value quality work what happens is if we work too long the quality of our work deteriorates and then creates even more work to fix the mistakes.

Doing less is more when we work deeply. The deeper we work, the less we need to work because the value of what we produce is significantly higher than hard work. It is deep work, not hard work that matters.

Observing

Posted on by philipdodson

Our ‘normal’ state as humans is a mind-filled unconscious state where we are not aware of the moment and are consumed by thoughts of the past and future, which is where the thinking mind spends all its time. We are stuck in the box of content that is the time-bound mind-created thing we see as our life.

We are concentrated on what is next or what has occurred and not consciously in the moment of what is actually happening now. It is not a state of observation, reflection, calm, joy or peace. It is a state of constant turmoil and suffering. We are in a fear-based operating system that affects our mental and physical state. We are on edge, anxious and in a constant adrenalin-fuelled condition of flight, fight or freeze.

If we change our state and observe our thoughts instead of energising and becoming them, we move from flight, fight, and freeze to calm and inner peace. We move into a conscious state of being rather than an unconscious state of thinking. We close the lid of the box of content.

Our true self is not our mind, it is the observer and when we become the observer then our true essence, which is us and is always there, has space to be. We create space for soulful creation to take place instead of no space other than constant thought.

When we become the observer, we are connected with our heart and soul, with our creative essence and love which enables us to be ourselves. When we are the thinker then we become connected to fear.