Not just effort, super effort.
How I kick started embodying my new year intentions this lunar new year...
As we settled into the lunar new year this February, I committed to a little practice called, Super Effort.
And this is how I explained it in those thread of tweets:
@AylaYuile: Changing patterns require value and belief alignment, but it also requires conscious action — the more energy you give to something it grows or evolves.
@AylaYuile: Of course change work always requires conscious effort. But super effort is like a plug in you only use when you’ve done all the internal work to clarify and align with what you are creating/changing.
@AylaYuile: Super effort involves external habit changes. Some people may fast, some may give up a vice, others double down on existing practices like yoga, meditation, journaling etc…
@AylaYuile: Let’s say we are pushing a heavy cart up and over a mountain. The hardest part isn’t the long journey up, but it’s when you must push that cart over the peak to the other side without letting it fall down and apart. That final, thoughtful push and control. That’s Super Effort.
@AylaYuile: For me this time, it looks like waking up 15-30 mins earlier than usual (not easy for me), yoga everyday (usually it’s 2 p/w), meditating twice a day, spending an hour each for journaling and studying everyday and sharing and connecting with my community more than I ever have.
@AylaYuile: Super Effort is for limited time only. You could say it’s a sacrificial ritual 😂 Sacrificing your vices and your comfort zone to build a new version of yourself.
@AylaYuile: But it is not a permanent state. Once you’ve conquered the mountain (aka change/creation), a new journey or as Gurdijeff would say, a new octave begins. So this begins a new cycle 🔁, and the need to be in a super active state doesn’t come back around until when it is required.
Developed by G.I. Gurdijeff based on his studies in the East and popularised by Russian philosopher, P.D. Ouspensky, The Fourth Way is a book that outlines a system of approach or as they call it, a school of Self development.
An old teacher of mine inspired me to dive deeper into this and I continue to study the system.
I don’t think I have actually put the book down in the last several years.
I’m always opening different chapters, sections. As I experience the teachings, I go back to deepen the next experience by deeper learning.
And so when I picked up the book around the lunar new year, it was one of those times where I chose opened to a random section…
And as I’m sure you imagined… I opened the section where it speaks of super effort. I didn’t have to read two words before I felt the intuitive pull to practice it in embodying my intentions for the year.
My intentions for the year are summarised in three words: Receive, Emerge and Expand.
Initially, I thought this is how it would go –
I would do my daily practices that involved both physical and internal work like yoga, journaling, meditating, ritualising and of course, taking action on what I wanted…
Through this I wanted to learn to receive help and support, allow a new level of Self emerge (via new offerings/projects), and expand my income and influence.
I also wanted to take up TikTok AND Twitter, two platforms I didn’t feel comfortable or confident in. Trying things that challenge you during super effort is recommended, and that felt aligned at the time.I imagined that the result of this would look like; a healthier me with a better daily routine, comfortably asking for help for my wedding stuff, starting to make traction on both TikTok and Twitter, and making more money through my new offerings and projects.
But this is how it really went –
I did my daily practices like yoga, journaling, meditating, ritualising and of course, taking action on what I wanted…
And quickly, I realised that I had no more new offerings to give at present. All that was coming through was all these creative ideas – nothing “of service” per se.
Each time I tried to put together new offerings, through a variety of methods, I was met with resistance, both externally and internally.
Everything I felt joy in creating was for me, first.
Which meant that I wasn’t going to expand my income through new offerings.
Which then lead me to worry for my financial wellbeing…there was a wedding on the horizon… and I stopped feeling excited about the wedding…
And worry is not a resonance you want when you are trying to expand…
So I met this resistance with “the love for challenge” I’ve mentioned in all my cover letters. I pivoted fast.
Where do I have least resistance?
What can I build through that?
Could the medicine to my resistance be found there?
The answers weren’t gonna come simply by asking, or meditating or journaling…
Let’s not forget, this is super effort.
Effort is an integral part of the process.
The etymology of effort, based on a quick Google, is this:
To put in effort is to exert your strength – to be strong, essentially.
So I chose to find power by first, asking for help.
I asked for help through prayer, through speaking to trusted friends… the kind and helpful ANZ personal finance consultant… Chat.GPT (the amount of weird, philosophical questions I ask it. I’ll have to do a poetry reading of the titles one day…. lol)….
And through the pearls of wisdom I received, I chose specific actions. This included seeking possibilities for income outside of my comfort zone, and yes, writing how much I loved challenges in cover letters…
But ultimately, what led to expanding my income was speaking up and defining my values. Claiming my personal power and letting it be known.
By learning to receive and asking for help, I was able to achieve my intention of expanding my income.
And with the security of income, I felt excited and ready to plan and ask for help about the wedding too.
That’s where I started to realise it was best to stop approaching each intention separately.
To remember, they all belong to the whole – me, I’m the whole.
And yet I was still missing that one key piece of my intention – [to] allow a new level of Self emerge (via new offerings/projects).
I knew that new offerings were off the table, yet I knew there was a new level of Self waiting by the curtains.
Two of the key practices in The Fourth Way (as they are in many other schools too), are self observation and self reflection.
So I reflected upon all of the different parts of my Self, the different versions/iterations… past incarnations even (I know a bit about my past life…)…
I observed what was inspiring me to create.
And I returned to the same observation I had before I freaked out about money: Everything I felt joy in creating was for me, first.
And so the challenge was to get over myself, essentially.
To be okay with just being me, and creating for me, and not to serve or expect an audience.
I didn’t want to be the polite, people pleasing protagonist anymore.
I wanted to be the main character with super powers (and effort, of course).
But I’m a born performer with a praise kink so this wasn’t going to be easy.
I took up both TikTok and Twitter but already gave up on Twitter because I got zero traction and I imposter syndrome’d the heck outta there…
So I decided to give myself time.
I extended my super effort by another month.
I continued with the same daily practices but with one clear intention: to let my main character energy emerge.
So I created on TikTok and created a bunch just for fun. I played on Mid Journey, I did other creative activities like plan a wedding, coordinate travel plans…
At the end of this last month of the super effort, I was unexpectedly given a fun creative challenge.
An invitation to create content for my former employers, Tree of Life. I got to live out my #maincharacter fantasy by creating content with cute gifted garments, made some #SponCon 💁♀️
And as I completed this round of super effort, I knew one more way to help my main character energy emerge and exist… This blog (read the first post here).
Like I said in that last tweet, super effort isn’t a permanent state. So I’ve enjoyed giving regular amounts of effort over the last couple of months.
A period of expansion always invites a period of contraction.
The best part of super effort is that even if things don’t turn out the way you expected, if you continue to put your effort in, your power and strength in, for the time you committed to doing so, you come out knowing and believing in your Self more at the end.
The results are just evidence of the effort you put in.
If you don’t like the result, maybe you didn’t like something about the effort you were putting in? Maybe you didn’t like putting the effort in at all.
Either way that’s just data for next time, isn’t it?
That’s why there’s a need for a period of contraction aka reflection and observation. To figure out what can be better, what you want more of… Maybe super effort isn’t for you. Maybe there’s a better system that works for your system.
And yet even that knowing brings you closer to knowing and believing in your Self more.
That’s what I love about doing the work and putting in effort, or even creating, for myself. It always feeds me to the next, beyond my imagination.
And so it is.
If you’d like to join me for a round of super effort, make sure you are signed up to The Practical Magick Channel portal to receive your invite…coming this July…