This morning I ran around the house in a mad rush, juggling the girls, lunches, a morning workout (and a swim), all before 8.15am. But most pressing of all was cleaning for the cleaner!

This frenzied tidying to prepare for the cleaner every second week has my husband James eye-rolling every time. ‘Why do you clean for the cleaner? Isn’t the whole point of the cleaner to save you doing it?’

Firstly, I don’t ‘clean’ before the cleaner comes, I tidy (ok sometimes I must confess I do clean a bit) and I do this because I think it will make her job easier (and I probably care what people think of my home habits a little too much).

Have you ever done this?

This type of behaviour is a classic example of over-efforting. Over-efforting is an old part of me that is hard to shake.

Over-efforting is when you choose to make things harder than they need to be because you have a deep-seated belief that we have to work hard for the results in our life. Well that is my definition of it anyway.

Often over-efforters get mis-labelled as high-achievers (which is complementary) but contrary to what we are taught, over-efforting doesn’t always make you achieve more - sometimes it can slow you down.

Here are some areas in my life where I have found myself over-efforting:

• Over-efforting by hosting raw vegan themed birthday parties for 20+ toddlers (you may have attended one over the years - ironically I’m not even vegan and the kids didn’t care!).
• Over-efforting in a relationship with someone who clearly wasn’t committed to me
• Over-efforting in my last business but not getting the impact or income results I desired

Where in your life are you over-efforting - putting in the big effort but not getting the results or feeling the joy?

Here is a big “aha!” I have had in recent years, particularly with my business:

Success does not come from effort alone.

This is a hard pill to swallow for those of us who were taught that if we work hard enough we can have whatever we want (look at how many people around the world work so hard and still live with so much scarcity).

Success comes from being discerning about your effort

Being discerning with your efforts looks like:

• Knowing when to say no to things/behaviours/people that don’t add value or bring you joy
• It is about creating systems that streamline your life and your business so you can effort less
• It is about working on your shadows so you aren’t efforting from a place of fear
• It is trusting that you can receive abundantly without over-efforting
• Piggybacking off the knowledge and effort of those who have done it before you (i.e. get support)

Your effort is a precious resource that needs to be directed into the things that really matter.

Place your effort into the things that give you more time, more freedom and more joy (you can insert what joy is for you - family, travel, connection, money, home etc).

PS - next month I’m going to mentor a handful of women on how to reduce the effort in their business AND create more time, freedom and joy in their work and personal life. This is an inner circle experience for 6 months called Purpose to Profit. It is a powerful container for those who want personal and business transformation.

Side note: I am well aware that having a cleaner is a luxury and a privilege but this has become a non-negotiable while growing my business.