In middle school, I thought that the transition to high school would be something I wasn’t really prepared to handle. I would be taking five Honors level classes so I anticipated that the amount of work for all these classes would be unbearable. When freshman year came around, the ideas I held about what the year would be like came true. I overstressed all of my classes and studied for many hours. I got into bad habits that year. I would come home from school at 2:30PM and sleep until about 4:30PM. At the same time, I wasn’t finding a good balance. I had unhealthy eating habits, worried far too much about the future and didn’t put my own health first.
My fears and concerns were produced from an insecurity about what would happen if I didn’t do well in school. I got caught up in the future and neglected the now. I was totally living for a fantasy future.
Luckily, as the years went on I began to raise in my awareness of what I was doing. I noticed my habits and I wanted to change them. I was able to change the way I was doing things so that eventually each and every year became easier. I began to enjoy school, assignments, and started to cherish the process instead of viewing it as work.
My change in awareness may be attributed to personal development as well as new views I held about my identity in the world.
1. Take Care of Yourself First- by far the most important thing to realize is that YOU are most important. Stay connected with your self and be healthy. Do not take any demands so seriously that they begin to overshadow your own personal well-being. If you are not healthy and well, how can you expect to produce your highest quality work or learn the material you are studying? As I explained, during my freshman year I did not put my personal needs first. Ultimately, I was making it harder on myself. Even taking a day to organize your schedule and plan time for yourself is a really good idea.
2. Find a Balance- Add time into your schedule where you focus on doing something for you. Here are some suggestions: meditate, exercise or just relax. Find something that will help you to stay in a balanced routine.
3. Ask For Help – you will be able to learn something better if you ask for help. Also, if you don’t ask for help, it could prevent you from learning future concepts, especially if it is in a math or science class that builds upon previous material. It will not always be possible for you to teach yourself. Sometimes you will need the teacher to provide further explanation.
4. Use Your Resources- If you don’t know something, look it up. This seems like the obvious action to take, however sometimes we can become dependent on the teacher. We expect them to teach us every part of the material we are learning in its entirety. Learning to teach yourself is a valuable technique that you can work on in high school and use in college.
5. Focus and Take Good Notes – focusing in class is a very important part of being able to learn the material. When you fully focus and learn something the first time around it will commit to your memory and you won’t have to review as much. In addition, be sure to take good notes in class so that you can refer to them at a later time if necessary. Take notes in short hand and record the main points of the discussion or lecture. Use stars and exclamation points for the most important parts.
6. Study-studying helps you to review and practice. Review any material that you may have forgotten. Studying encompasses many things; doing your homework, practicing for tests, reviewing notes, making study guides, reviewing flash cards and any other helpful strategies. Choose what works best for you.
7. Don’t Compare Yourself To Others- Comparing yourself to others can be a waste of time and energy. It is common for students to become overly concerned with their performance in comparison to someone else. Instead I recommend you focus on doing your best and helping your classmates.
8. Get Enough Sleep – Personally I like to get at least eight hours of sleep a night. Sometimes I felt tired in class even if I got eight hours of sleep. The important thing is to get on a schedule where you go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning. Avoid long mid-afternoon naps and staying up late to finish homework.
9. Be Organized and Set Goals – Organization is crucial to helping yourself with your classes. Keep track of all your assignments (due dates for projects, tests, and homework). I used an agenda throughout all four years of high school to help stay organized. Set goals for when you’d like to finish your projects. Each night, set aside blocks of time to do homework for each class. Set small attainable goals inside of the larger ones.
10. Don’t Stress- Stressing and worrying will only make it harder for you to stay focused, stay on task, and ultimately perform well in school. One of the most important things to keep in mind is that there is always time to improve. Do your best and work hard, but don’t stress. Remember there is nothing to worry about.
The Law of Least Effort is the fourth spiritual law listed in the book The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams
In Deepak’s words, “This law is based on the fact that nature’s intelligence functions with effortless ease and abandoned carefreeness. This is the principle of least action, of no resistance. This is, therefore, the principle of harmony and love. When we learn this lesson from nature, we easily fulfill our desires.”
The Law of Least Effort is the idea that fulfillment is easy to achieve when we we act out of love and unity. This is because love creates the least resistance to the natural flow of things. On the other hand, when we act selfishly and attempt to satisfy the ego, it is much more difficult to feel fulfilled.
Why and How it Works
Part of the reason why this law works has to do with the way we are perceiving our reality. When we make changes to our interior reality (changing the way we are feeling) our exterior reality then shifts to reflect our inner reality. So when we act out of oneness and truth, instead of acting solely for satisfaction of the ego, we notice a shift. Things become easier to experience with less expended effort. At the same time, there are changes to the things that make us feel fulfilled as we change our awareness. We may find fulfillment in something as simple as stillness, where as before we may have sought exterior sources of happiness.
One of the easiest ways to observe The Law of Least Effort in our everyday life is to observe nature’s intelligence at work.Anything in nature is an example of the law in action. Think of how a tree grows, does the tree have to struggle to grow or does it happen naturally? Think of an animal breathing, does it need to think to breathe? The obvious answer is no. These events happen naturally without any effort. The tree grows and the animal breathes with no struggle. There is no resistance so the needs are met easily and with no effort required.
The Law of Least effort is truly amazing. Prior to writing this post, I had been noticing this law at work in my life in an increasing number of ways. The less I thought about a “problem”, the easier it was to come up with a solution.The less I perceived a situation as a “struggle” the easier it was to change it. Sometimes I would have a solution to another “problem” just through acceptance of the present moment.
The Law of Least Effort can be applied in your everyday life by using the three principles outlined by Deepak in his book
Acceptance
Acceptance comes with making a decision. It is your choice to decide that every occurrence is happening perfectly just the way it is happening. Accept the fact that the universe is flawless just the way it is. In your acceptance you reduce the resistance you are creating.
Responsibility
Responsibility is the next principle of the law. Responsibility means not looking for a reason to blame anyone or yourself for the current situation. When you are responsible you see the situation as an opportunity to display your truest self to the world and recreate in love. You know that every situation is part of the perfection of it all.
Defenseless
Defenseless is the third principle used to apply the law. Defenselessness is important because it allows you to free up energy that is wasted on defending your opinions and points of view. You will no longer argue to defend yourself. Instead you will be open and flexible to listen to other points of view. If you present your opinion and others disagree, you will not feel a need to defend yourself.
All in all, you can let your intentions out into the universe and know that they will eventually come to fruition, when and if the time is right. Your intentions will be one with nature’s intelligence.
Weight Loss and The Law Of Least Effort
Weight-Loss is one very practical application of the Law of Least Effort. When we are attempting to lose weight, we often put a lot of energy into a perceived struggle. We may view ourselves as battling against our desire to eat unhealthy or even in a battle against a false identity. We may feel that it is going to be a hard fight for us to “win”. What we may not realize is that when we do this we are actually making it harder for ourselves to lose weight. To quote Sonia Johnson, “What we resist persists”. As we view it as a fight, it then becomes a fight and the weight loss becomes difficult. We get caught up in the idea of the battle.
When we apply the Law of Least Effort in this situation, weight loss actually becomes easy and effortless. Instead of feeling as if we are struggling, we solely connect to our true self and know the wants and needs of our body. We know what’s going to be best for our self and we do it. Also, we feel the great energy that is inside of us and we feel healthy. Health can not be overpowered by our resistance anymore.It just may happen that you may lose a lot of weight using this law and you may not even realize it. In fact, you may not remember or feel that you lost a lot until someone comments and reminds you.
Money and The Law of Least Effort
It is also very easy to observe the Law of Least Effort in action with money. When you are not focused on how much money you can spend, you may notice that you more frequently have money to spend. Also,when you are not focused solely on making money, and instead focus on what’s important, you will make more money. For example, with your blog, if you solely focused on monetizing it and spent no time writing content, you wouldn’t have a very profitable blog. However, if you instead focus on the real purpose of your writing and what you would like to accomplish, the money will come.
To quote, “Don’t chase the money, chase the dream”.
In any case, I have found that when we act out of love and release our resistance through whatever means, what happens is truly remarkable.
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More examples of nature’s intelligence at work?
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