When Effort Stops Working

The last several months of my life have been full of tension.

There are several reasons for it, but the tension amplified drastically after a few promising opportunities for my speaking business fell through for reasons I couldn't control.

Almost overnight, I went from feeling open and energized to tight, restless, and anxious.

I've been in this territory before, but I'm still learning how to meet this kind of tension in a way that doesn't drain the life out of me.

My first instinct is always to double down on what has worked for years... exert more effort, deploy more willpower, figure it out.

In other words, sit down, get to work, chase the next lead, close the next deal.

So for weeks, I kept doing what has always made me feel in control. But something different was happening this time.

The more I tried to get ahead of the tension, the more I felt pulled into it.

The more I felt pulled into it, the more tired my soul became.

Thankfully, I have a very wise woman in my life, and she said something that disrupted the whole cycle.

She told me to get off the subject—to stop fixating on it.

Not because the problem didn't matter, but because my way of holding it was making it heavier.

In my attempt to solve the problem, I was reinforcing it.

So...get off the subject.

When I asked what that actually looks like, she asked me a simple question I almost never ask myself when I'm stressed...

What do you want to do?

Not what needs to be done. Not what I think I should be doing. What I actually want.

The only honest answer that came was that I've wanted to build a fire pit in our backyard for some time, but I'd been ignoring it because there were more pressing things to do.

Still, the desire was there.

So I decided to get off the subject by building the fire pit.

Over the next several days, I dug out grass, ordered gravel, arranged stones, planted plants, and let my nervous system breathe.

A few days later, as I sat around the fire pit for the first time, I opened my phone and scanned through my email.

There was a message I wasn't expecting—a leader from an organization I'd spoken at earlier this year, asking if I'd be willing to do a coaching session with each of their employees.

Out of seemingly nowhere, I'd been offered the biggest coaching contract I've signed to date.

I'm telling you this story because it's easy to believe that tension is a signal to double down and press harder.

But what if tension is an invitation to redirect our energy toward what reconnects us to ourselves?

What if it's not a call to effort at all, but a call to alignment—a quiet nudge toward the thing that helps you feel like a human again, not a machine trying to keep up?

There's a part of all of us that already knows where our attention wants to go.

It's usually the thing we dismiss because it doesn't look productive or strategic.

But that place—the one that feels most alive—often opens the door that effort can't pry open.

And when you give yourself to it...when you get off the subject...life has a way of moving again.

As always, I'm rooting for you. We're in this together.
​
-Caleb

P.S. If you know someone who might resonate with it, feel free to pass it along!