What if accomplishment could be as easy as rolling a ball down a hill? I posed this question in my last post. Read it here before you dive into this one.
You are an achiever. A deep desire to create in this world beats in your heart, but you seem to get in your own way. You suspect that you are overcomplicating achievement itself. Sometimes, you fall into imposter syndrome, self doubt, and fear.
After reading the previous post, if you are looking for the ninja secrets to easeful accomplishment, read on.
Experience less stress and burnout.
Learn to access more energy, flow, and ease.
In the previous post, I brought up the idea of potential energy. Let’s take a deeper look at the relationship it has with bottom of the hill thinking.
Potential Energy
Potential energy is an ever accessible energy, ready to activate at any moment. It is like a ball on top of a hill. This energy source contains within it the seed of creative potential. Potential energy comes from life itself.
Much like water behind a dam, it has unexpressed energy behind it. Water, when harnessed, can power an entire city. When harnessed by you, potential energy powers your creative spirit. Find potential energy in a compressed spring. Ready to spring forth, it is available to everyone at all times.
Even if it is always available, it is not always accessible. We have the power to block our own potential energy with bottom of the hill thinking. Our heads cloud with too much thought from our personal minds.
Holding on to Thought
Too much thought is only a part of the story. A larger volume of thought can be distracting, but another factor gets in the way of our potential energy. Attachment also brings us to the bottom of the hill. We can become attached to our thinking. We latch on to the thoughts in our heads. At the top of the hill, we still have thoughts, but they are only a problem if they stick.
When achievers use bottom of the hill thinking, their thoughts look more real to them. These thoughts are energized. When we give energy to our thoughts, we have less energy available to focus on our task. Most of the time, we don’t realize when thoughts drain our energy. They look and feel real. They are a reality, but only to us, and only in the moment. The reality our thoughts create is temporary.
The mind operates much like a river. When the water level is low, sticks catch on exposed rocks. More sticks get stuck to the other sticks. Soon enough, there is a tangled jumble of sticks and moss that clogs the river. When we are in bottom of the hill thinking, thoughts clog our mind.
Thoughts that Flow
When we allow our thoughts to flow, they have nothing to attach onto. Our thoughts are only a problem if they distract us.
This idea is at the heart of top of the hill thinking. We can have the exact same thoughts at the bottom of the hill and the top of the hill. However, at the top of the hill, they drift on by. They don’t affect performance because they aren’t caught. They don’t stick. The thoughts in our heads, no matter what they are about, don’t affect our mindset at the top of the hill.
Stripped of energy, thoughts become no more than background noise. Noise in the background only bothers us if we let it. Sometimes, it is a good idea to ignore your own mind. From the top of the hill, our thoughts aren’t a big deal.
When we have top of the hill thinking, the water level in our river is high. The rocks aren’t exposed, and the sticks have nothing to catch on to. They float by as the river flows. Our minds can operate in this way, allowing thoughts to wash downstream.
Fresh Thinking
When the mind operates with flow, the volume of thoughts tends to die down. The thoughts aren’t jumbled and repeated. The mind gives us more of what we unconsciously give energy to. When we allow thoughts to flow, new and fresh thinking has space to show up. These insights can be eureka moments, but they need not be so grand. New ideas, obvious solutions, and clear next steps come to a mind that isn’t holding on to thought.
Just as a fist can not grasp a tool, a mind that grips can not grasp wisdom. Top of the hill thinking comes from a relaxed mind. Loosen your grip. Open your mind. Relax back into your own clarity of thought.
This is a different way of using the mind than most achievers are used to. Their typical habit is to use the intellect, to think their way through life. This way of thinking helped them to achieve in school. The intellect is great for learning information and passing tests. Yet, the answers to life’s juicy questions aren’t found in a textbook. A deeper intelligence guides you in everyday life and gives you answers to life’s meaningful questions.
When we access potential energy and top of the hill thinking, it is this natural intelligence that helps us create. Athletes in the Zone describe the experience as losing themselves. They don’t analyze every single movement and action with their intellect. If they did, they would drop out of the moment and fumble. Instead, athletes become present to the moment.
Borrow this presence of mind from athletes and apply it to how you approach work. Drop the intellect and trust in the flow of the moment. Are you willing to let go of trying to figure it all out?
Solving From the Bottom
Achievers want to solve their way to clarity. They think the mind must work like a rubix cube or a math equation. If they can solve the puzzle, they will be brought to the top of the hill. Are you inclined to think this way too?
The mind is not a math equation. More bottom of the hill thinking can not get you to the top of the hill. Einstein said, “We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.” Bottom of the hill thought is lower in quality, tending to be more repetitious, personal, and confused.
Like using the wrong size wrench for a bolt, using unclear thought will only frustrate. If the wrench is too big or small, it won’t fit. The wrench circles around the bolt, forcing and scraping. Don’t try harder using the wrong wrench. When you use bottom of the hill thinking to get to the top of the hill, it creates a looping path. You will find yourself right back where you started.
Feelings that Guide
Instead of using the intellect to solve your way to the top of the hill, feel the path forward. Feelings can guide you up. As you work, feelings of ease, contentment, and clarity show you when your thinking moves toward the top of the hill. Stress, pressure, and urgency are a sign you are blocking potential energy. Emotions offer real time feedback, telling you where your thinking is in relation to the hill.
When you feel yourself moving down, change tasks. Try something new, or attempt to see the work in a new way. Stop using the wrong sized wrench. Go back to the toolbox and get a new wrench. While a new wrench may fit better, you can’t get to it if the toolbox is closed. Open the toolbox. Open up your mind to the flow of new thoughts.
If you still find yourself at the bottom of the hill, it is ok. It might be time to take a break. Clarity will return with time. It always returns when you let go of your current thinking.
Get Rid of Bottom of the Hill Thinking?
If you want more top of the hill thinking, you might try to rid yourself of bottom of the hill thinking. This creates more mental noise, taking you in the wrong direction. Thoughts happen fast. You can’t block them before they enter your mind. Don’t try to be a thought goalie. You can stretch your mind around and do all the mental acrobatics you want, but you will never block all your thoughts. Instead, remove the back of the net.
It doesn’t help to control or manipulate your thoughts. You can not force a thought away. Thoughts are mental energy, not objects that can be manipulated at will. Also, you are using the same tool to fix the problem that created the problem in the first place. Your intellectual mind is the wrong tool for the job.
What if you didn’t have to do anything? As long as you don’t give them power, thoughts will drift away and dissolve in time. Let them go. You are still able to work with a busy mind. Thoughts don’t have to be a big deal. We are all thinking beings. If having thoughts is a problem, then the entire human experience will be problematic. Let the thoughts become background noise. Often, when you let them drift into the background, they disappear completely.
Accept Where You Are
One of the best ways to get to the top of the hill is to accept when you are at the bottom. Make peace with the fact that you don’t have access to potential energy right now. Let go of the fight that keeps you stuck. Be ok with being anywhere on the hill because wherever you are is where you are. Your place on the hill will change when your thinking changes. For now, you are here. Can that be ok?
Go Slow to Go Fast
Working in this way is going with the flow of life. Instead of pushing ourselves, it is using our own life energy to guide us forward. Often, this means slowing down to the speed of the work. Slow down? This goes in the opposite direction most achievers think. They say, “How can I achieve more by slowing down? I need to speed up to get more done.” Yet, the mind doesn’t operate as well when we push it to go faster. We make more mistakes. We veer off course and spin out.
When I was a teacher, we had a saying: “Go slow to go fast.” When we rushed through educational content, students did not have time to absorb the information. We could achieve more when we slowed down to match the speed of the learning. We need to teach as fast as the students learned, not as fast as we could teach.
The same is true when we work. Working in this way is like an easeful car ride through the countryside. Most achievers want to work like a car on a racetrack. The car ride in the countryside ends with a destination. The car at the racetrack might go fast, but you are only going in circles.
Slowing Down to the Speed of Work
Slow down to the speed of the work. Take your foot off the gas. Most achievers want an action they can use to accomplish more. This is because they can control actions. Yet we find potential energy and top of the hill thinking in non-action. Let go of control. Release the pressure and trust the intelligence of life to guide you.
Just as a river has stills and rapids, the speed of work is always in flux. Many achievers want to work at breakneck speeds at all times. There is a time to go fast and a time to go slow. We can start to get a feeling for the speed of our work in each moment when we listen to how it feels.
When we rev ourselves up, we react too late. We plow through signals. When we slow down to the speed of work, we are able to respond. We will know when to change tracks and when to take breaks. Decisions become easy and obvious.
A Decision from Clarity
When you have clarity from the top of the hill, you can decide to set potential energy in motion. You can also decide not to.
This is an easy decision. When you have clarity, you have free will. Your will is free to engage with potential energy or leave it unexpressed. While potential energy is available to you at all times, you don’t have to act on it at all times.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. There is time to rest. You also can dilute our attention and focus on too many potential projects. Sometimes, you need to say no to potential energy to have energy for something more important.
Whether you decide to use your potential energy says nothing about your value or your ability. Said another way, your decision is not connected to your worth.
Decisive Clarity
Knowing that we have made a clear decision to activate potential energy is powerful. It gives you clarity of purpose. Working from a space of indecision wastes energy. You constantly question what you are doing. You question whether you want to do it. All this used up mental energy blocks you from creating. A clear decision from top of the hill thinking will guide you even when you find yourself at the bottom of the hill.
The most powerful takeaway is this: only ever make big decisions from the top of the hill. Decisions made from the bottom of the hill ruin businesses and relationships. Sometimes, you need to hold off until you get to the top of the hill. Don’t decide. Wait. Know you are there by the feeling of it. When you are at the top of the hill, the decision will feel obvious, easy, and simple. It won’t even feel like a decision. Hold off if it feels emotional, confused, or urgent. If you remember only this, the decisions made from the top of the hill will change your life.
Decisive clarity is a knife that cuts through doubt and confusion.
How would a powerful decision help you with your work?
What would you decide to create?
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I want more achievers to work with ease and clarity. Please share this article with someone you care about.
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