The Key to Success - Attraction or Hard Work?

Does success have to involve hard work? Or can we attract it with little effort? This queston was posed in an online forum recently, and unsuprisingly - given that it was a 'mainstream' type board - the majority of replies voted in favour of hard work. That view is the most common in western culture, especially in those areas where a Puritan work ethic prevails. But the fact that a majority believe something doesn't necessarily make it correct.

Success (defined here as the manifestation of desired results, whether in terms of wealth, career progress, health, relationships or any other area of life), is primarily dependent on vibrational alignment. If you're aligned with your desired result, the universe (Source/God/whatever you want to call it!), will line up people and events to assist in its manifestation. Your primary role is not to take action, but to line up with your desire on an energy level, and let law of attraction do the rest.

So does that mean that action is unnecessary to achieve your desired result? No - in most cases it is necessary. But the type of action that leads to greatest success is not the 'hard work' that is so glorified in this culture. Instead it is 'inspired action', as Abraham calls it. What is inspired action? It's simply the action that you feel drawn to take when you're already in vibrational alignment with your desire. It's the action that is joyous, fun, meaningful and easy. It's the path of least resistance; the action that doesn't feel like 'work' because you love doing it so much. It's action that you'd take even if you weren't being paid for it, or achieving some other end result, but is instead desirable for its own sake.

In Abraham's terms, when you have a desire, Source becomes one with that desire instantly, and then sends you guidance (in the form of emotions), to help you to align with the desire too, and to allow it manifest physically. The desire to take inspired action is part of this emotional guidance. How much of the work you do each day falls into this category?

Given that success is, in most cases, a product of vibrational alignment plus inspired action, is there a place for hard work in the conventional sense? I believe it's not only unnecessary, but actually counterproductive. First of all, let's be clear what we're talking about. 'Hard work' in this sense refers to action that is undertaken purely as a means to an end, and which is not enjoyable in itself. That is, action which you actively dislike, or which feels stressful and overwhelming. Action which doesn't feel good, in short. It's important to clarify this, because many people regard themselves as hard workers, and see it as a virtue, but enjoy their activity. That isn't the kind of work referred to here.

Hard work in the negative sense is counterproductive because the negative emotion associated with it represents a cutting off of our connection with Source. With this connection restricted, the synchronistic events that make the manifestation of a desire so effortless cannot flow easily. In addition, if we're spending our working time feeling negative emotion and focusing on what we don't want, law of attraction will bring more of those undesirable emotions and events into our experience. We'll continue to create a life where the only way we allow ourselves to get things done and experience success is the hard way.

Many people are resistant to the idea that hard work is actually counterproductive to success. This is understandable when you consider how much it's valorised in western culture. People even brag about how hard they work, and those successful people who have achieved their goals after overcoming lots of adversity along the way seem to be more admired than those who had an easy ride to the top. 'Paying your dues' is regarded as some kind of necessary rite of passage in many fields (especially in the arts), and those who have a head start (perhaps as a result of family wealth or connections) are often taken less seriously. Even those people who don't subscribe to the religions that glorify hard work can be influenced by their teachings, simply because they're so pervasive in society as a whole. As a result, many people won't allow success to manifest in their lives until they feel they've put in 'enough' hours, or effort, or struggle (this is an unconscious block in most cases).

So, may people will resist the idea that hard work is not the virtuous thing it's made out to be. But even for those people who realise that life should be easy and enjoyable (and who care about enjoying the journey as well as the destination!), it isn't always enough to accept this intellectually. Old belief patterns can be suprisingly enduring. It can actually be scary to release these self-defeating habits of thought and action. After all, if you attribute your current or future success to hard work, what if releasing the hard work habit means that you end up losing the success too? This kind of fear of failure can make many people afraid to try a new approach - because such a new approach in most cases requires a total overhaul of a person's belief system and action habits. It's not surprising that this causes some resistance!

But if you'd like to allow your success to come more easily, but find yourself in the 'hard work' trap, what can you do about it?

People change their beliefs and habits in different ways, and no one approach will work for everyone. Still, here are some things you might care to try, if you'd like to take an easier approach to life, and maintain (or increase) your success at the same time:

• Get the fundamentals right.

  If you don't know absolutely that law of attraction works, and that life is supposed to be fun, easy and enjoyable, then you don't have the necessary core belief on which you'll build your new habits in place. I'd recommend reading some of the Abraham material for a detailed explanation of this. Check out their free articles at www.abraham-journal.com, and the book 'Ask and it is Given'.

• Start small.

  Don't try to radically overhaul your entire belief system overnight. Instead look for areas in your life where you're putting pressure on yourself unnecessarily, and try to ease off a bit. Do you really do need to so certain household chores as often as you do? Are you spending too much time attending to the needs of others at your own expense? Are you resisting buying some labour saving device that you could easily afford? These are just examples, but most people will be able to find some area of their life which they could allow to be a bit easier right now. And when you see that life not only doesn't fall apart, but actually improves as a result of easing off a bit, you can begin to apply it to the bigger areas, such as career, etc.

• Avoid reinforcing old attitudes when interacting with others.

  You might find that you become newly aware of just how much hard work is glamorsied, and how those who have an apparently easy life are vilified. If you find yourself in conversations along these lines with friends (particularly if they are success-oriented themselves), try to avoid being sucked back into that mentality. There's no need to argue or try to convert them - you can be silently happy in your knowledge that there is a better way! Just don't let their attitudes drag you down. And if you're already successful, and others react negatively, you don't need make them feel better by justifying your success, and telling horror stories about 'hard work' it took to get there.

• If you're a habitual 'to do list' maker, try out Abraham's Place Mat Process.

  This involves making a 'to do' lists with two sides - one for yourself, and one for the universe. Instead of making a huge list of things for yourself that you know you probably won't get done (and feeling bad about it), just include a few things that you know absolutely that you will do. Then put everything else on the universe's side of the list - and trust that things will be taken care of. You'll be amazed at the results! For more information, check out Abraham's article on the Place Mat Process.

• Find examples of people who are succeeding the easy way.

  There are plenty of them about, but they tend to attract less attention (certainly less positive attention!) than those who suffer and struggle and pay an 'appropriate' price for their success! Fred Gratzon is one inspiring example of an entrepreneur who has achieved great success without working 'hard' for it. Check out his 'Lazy Way to Success' book and blog!

This article has focused on the need for inspired, easy action, as opposed to the difficult kind that most people believe to be necessary for success. But is even that kind of action necesary, ultimately? Or could we manifest our desires purely through the power of our thoughts, with no physical action at all? I believe that's possible, and that we all have the potential to do this. In such a case we'd still be 'working', but we'd just be manipulating energy on an inner level, rather than working directly with the denser, solid-looking energy known as matter, on an outer level.

This kind of instant manifestation is already experienced by many in dreams or in conscious out of body states. There are also numerous accounts of yogis, shamans etc, who have demonstrated such an ability in the physical world too. Certainly such a level of mastery would require more control over the amaizing manifesting machines that we call our minds than most people currently possess - not least because while it might be nice to materialise a few million pounds on the table, you don't want your negative thoughts manifesting instantly too! But that's a topic for another article : )
 

This article was inspired by the Abraham-Hicks material. For more information about Abraham, please check out the Abraham section on this site, or visit their official websites.