Don't Give 100 Percent Effort

This is an old Zen exercise. When we are striving for excellence, deep into some lengthy project and feel burn-out starting, it sometimes helps to give only three-fourths effort instead of 100 percent. It is a way of tricking the mind. When we let up the pressure, we find that 25 percent of our effort is being wasted in anxiety and fear of failure and it is usually this that we give up when we take off the pressure.

Back to Exercises