We’ve all been there. We work—SO hard—and yet all that effort, it’s as fruitless as most of our trees here in the Mojave Desert. There is nothing quite like a goal you can’t seem to achieve, when you know there’s no increase in effort left to give. Like the phone lines in a government office, you’re tapped. What then, can you do?
Here at PiP, we think the last thing you should consider is giving up. But continuing on in the current fashion isn’t necessarily a sustainable option: if there’s no rabbit in the hat, you can’t possibly pull one out.
So perhaps, instead of trying so hard, just try something different. It’s what engineers figured out a while back. If you have to move a boulder you can either be determined to use sheer human force and will power (to get the boulder absolutely nowhere), or you can pick up a lever and gain some leverage.
When working hard is hardly working, get some new tools (ones that are bigger, stronger, and maybe electric), find a new strategy, and let creativity teach you the ways that the same amount of effort can bring vastly different results. In other words, try what our friend Ron Alvesteffer said, work smart instead of working hard (or maybe just a combination of both).