- Thomas A. Edison
Recently, I had some great news because I met a big goal of mine and I called up one of my good friends from college with whom I like to share these kinds of things. "Are you good at EVERYTHING?" she asked, laughing. "I mean, isn't anything hard for you to accomplish?"
Her comment seemed kind of odd to me, especially since a colleague had told me earlier in the week that I make everything look so easy. What these two women don't see (but to which my husband can attest) is the hours upon hours that I work, the nights I am up until 2am perfecting something I've created, and all of the behind-the-scenes effort I have to exert to accomplish anything at all.
To set the record straight, and to clear up yet another commonly misunderstood spiritual truth (or MST), let me say that most things that you want will require a lot of hard work. Most things that I've accomplished required an incredible amount of hard work, dedication, focus and perseverance. In fact, I can't think of many things that came to me easily or effortlessly. Quite frankly, this belief I hear-that things should just flow once you start to follow your dreams-just eludes me.
Now, don't get me wrong. When you decide to go after your dreams, there are moments of incredible synchronicity, there are times when the universe gives you huge lucky breaks and there are days, weeks even, when things can seem almost effortless. But most of the time, when you are working towards a major goal, when you are paving a new path in your life, things are going to require quite a bit of elbow grease.
I don't know why some people try to present this part of the journey as easy, because it is anything but. Who are these writers who author books telling my clients that all they have to do is leap and the net will appear with no effort on their part or that they should do what they love and the money will magically follow? Is there a little asterisk with fine print in these books somewhere that says: *And also you should know that you will have to work really hard and sometimes you will want to give up and many times you will feel frustrated but if you persevere and keep going even when things look bleak and find ways to strategically overcome each obstacle that comes your way, then yes, you can make your dream come true. Because if there isn't, then let this blog post be the fine print to these reminiscent-of-fairyland cliches. Your dreams are going to take a lot of hard work.
One of my favorite stories from S.N. Goenka (the teacher of Vipassana meditation) goes something like this (although if you can, listen to him tell it. It's a lot funnier):
There is a boy in a village whose mother gives him 5 rupees and tells him to go into the market to buy some cooking oil. On his way home, the boy trips and spills half of the oil. "Oh no!" he laments. "Look! I have spilled half the oil!" He cries all the way home about losing half of the oil. This boy is a pessimist.
Another boy in another village has a mother who also gives him 5 rupees and tells him to go to the market to buy some cooking oil. This boy also trips on his way home and spills half of the oil. "Wow, look at this!" the boy says. "I have saved half of the oil! I could have spilled it all when I slipped but I managed to save half of it!" The boy goes home, happy. This boy is an optimist. 
A third boy in yet another village is also given 5 rupees from his mother. He goes to buy some cooking oil, also slips (those markets must be slippery places) and he also loses half of the oil. "Oh my!" says the boy. "I have spilled half of the oil. But I have saved half of the oil. This means that I will have to work in order to earn enough money in order to be able to buy back the oil that I spilled." S.N. Goenka says that this boy is a Vipassana meditator. He understands that difficulties will arise, and when they do, one must work hard to overcome them.
I love this story because it feels very true to me. Accomplishments, great accomplishments, require a positive outlook, a realistic plan and a lot of work.
If you are in Square Three, if you are working hard to make your dreams come true and find yourself in a place that is so-not-effortless, fear not. Doubt not. This is the nature of Square Three. This is what happens when one tries to manifest a dream into the real world. This is how it goes-with a lot of hard work. Those people who make it look effortless? They are only showing you the end result. I bet they worked their tail ends off to earn their accomplishments. I bet they, too, are up until 2am trying to get things just right.
Remember that cheesy song from the late 1990's by ChumbaWumba? The one that goes, "I get knocked down, but I get up again?" That's the real secret to success. Throw out this "effortless" belief and start finding some beliefs that inspire perseverance. Find some people who love to cheer you on. Get yourself a damn good coach. Then get to work. You may even want to keep a journal chronicling what happens to you along the way because who knows? One day yours may be a story a dream-follower novice needs to hear. And when you do meet your goals, when those dreams that required all of your blood, sweat and tears do come true, celebrate like crazy. Like Voltaire said, "The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it." When things get tough, remember that you have a lot of glory coming.
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