Do you really need to achieve all your goals in order to have peace of mind and start enjoying your life? For most, the answer is an obvious, “Duh! Of course, you do”.
Is it possible to achieve work-life balance in today’s demanding and quickly changing world? Most top performers believe the answer is no. Working hard to achieve your goals before you give yourself time to enjoy your puts you on the treadmill from hell.
After coaching top performers for the last 25 years, I have seen first hand that someday in the future won’t be better than today unless you change your perspective. The circumstances of your life are not the cause of your happiness and enjoyment.
In the late 90’s I began experimenting with what I call Enlightened Perspectives. I was curious about how spiritual ideals and values would affect the performance of my clients. The results were nothing short of miraculous.
Enlightened Perspectives contain the power to dramatically transform a person’s life by shifting how they related to everything. The perspective shift seems to positively affect your relationship to work, hobbies, creative projects, new initiatives and all your personal relationships.
Adopting An Enlightened Perspective Creates a Performance Boost.
I define enlightenment as the recognition that the source of life within you is also the source of life for everyone and everything else. We are all one thing expressing itself with infinite variety.
As heady as that sounds, learning to feel a “oneness and connection” to the world around you is very practical. For example: Feeling separate drives a person to be recognized at all costs which; causes them to compromise their values and integrity to achieve the objective.
From an Enlightened Perspective, no achievement is necessary. The world is whole, complete and perfect as it is. I realize that sounds absurdly idyllic yet, there is a system for achieving that level of certainty and peace. Once you are there, your goals become delightful creative projects rather than oppressive “have to” projects. This free-thinking state creates an optimal condition for collaboration, creativity, and resourcefulness.
When you connect with the idea that the source of life in you is also the source of life in everything else, you naturally feel more peace which helps you make empowering decisions.
From the perspective that we are all one thing expressing itself with infinite variety, you realize that all the rules you follow are just made up. They are social, cultural and familial dogma that may or may not be serving you.
When you embrace an Enlightened Perspective, you realize that you are not obligated to achieve, accomplish or meet any arbitrary standards of life and success.
This gives you an amazing opportunity to re-evaluate your rules about success, money, family, downtime, holidays, retirement and living a life of meaning. You start asking yourself a whole new set of empowering questions like…
- Do I continue to hold myself accountable to standards that don’t exist?
- What new standards can I create to help me accomplish all that I want and enjoy my life in the process?
- What could I change to live a happy life now?
Break Free By Releasing Attachments
To live outside the confines of societal rules and obligations, you will have to examine and release your attachments. Attachment is an exaggerated fear of losing an imaginary benefit. If you keep working more than you want to, then there is an imaginary benefit you are attached to. If your work doesn’t make you happy, then you believe that some pot of gold, at the end of the rainbow, will make you happy. Or worse, you are lying to yourself and pretending that you “have to” keep on working the way you do.
To truly live your best life, you will need to release your attachments to the imaginary benefits that society has promised you. With reflection, you will realize that most of the promises of society are designed to keep you alive by being a compliant member of the pack.
Money, prestige, leisure, stature, and power are all just sexy survival strategies and do not lead to fulfillment. They are shiny objects that distract you from living the life that you really want.
Using an Enlightened Perspective, you can redesign your life to be harmonious with all the things you believe your goals will bring you. Money, success, and power are just a means to an end. You can say yes to all the things that would make you happy now.
Because you are experiencing no fear and no attachment to imaginary benefits, you have the capability of stepping outside of social norms in order to fulfill and satisfy yourself.
This is tremendously beneficial and very uplifting to all the people around you. Initially, the people in your life will be a frayed that you have decided to live your life on your own terms. But eventually they will get used to it and in fact, they will begin to applauded and be inspired by it.
Enlightenment is the recognition that the source of life within you, is the source of life and everyone and everything else. We are all one thing expressing itself with infinite variety. Which means that you are seeing yourself as infinite. You are seeing the people around you as infinite. You are recognizing the pervasive one this that all of us are.
This gives you a tremendous confidence and permission to relax and enjoy the life you have.
Author
Matthew Ferry