Have you ever found yourself struggling to accomplish a task and feeling frustrated that you are not achieving what you believe, for whatever reason, you “should” be able to do? Chances are you have misjudged the amount of effort you needed or even had available to you.

In order for effort to serve us well, our efforts need to be appropriate to us. We get off track when they are not.

We sometimes get stuck because many of us are taught in this life that we cannot simply sit back and wait for something to happen; we have to work at what we want to manifest in our lives.

This way of thinking comes from the Western work ethic that teaches that the harder you work, the more likely it is that you’ll achieve your goals.

Yes … and the reality is that if we push too hard, we won’t succeed. As I learned from The Molecule of More by Daniel Lieberman and Michael E. Long, desire points the way when we want to do something, and willpower gets us there. However, willpower is like a muscle. And like our physical muscles, willpower experiences fatigue and simply gives out.

What we need to tap into is what the Buddhist tradition calls “right effort.”

Is “right effort” hard to learn and attain? To my mind, it is a life-long inquiry. It takes time and experimentation and none of us will always get it right. There will be times when frustration shows up. There will be other times when we find our right effort and everything flows, leaving us feeling satisfied, accomplished, grateful and more.

To me, “right effort” is an integral aspect in the journey of yoga and life itself.

Happy practicing. ~ Nora