The Paradox of Effortless Effort

Read time: 5 minutes

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Where I share insights that have impacted me, thoughts on personal growth, and actionable strategies to help you navigate career and life transitions.

Today: Want to get somewhere faster? Do less.

Image Excerpt: Ben Hogan’s “Five Lessons”

I was golfing yesterday.

Now, let me be clear: I love golf.
I’m not good at it.
But I still love it.

There’s the beauty of being outside. The rhythm of the game. Spending time with friends doing something we love.

But yesterday reminded me of another reason I love it: golf is a living lesson in something I often talk about with clients - "effortless effort."

What Is Effortless Effort?

The phrase, rooted in mindfulness and Buddhist practice, sounds like a contradiction. Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki wrote, "When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself." In other words, effort is not about striving to control, but about wholehearted presence.

Similarly, the Taoist concept of wu wei—often translated as "non-doing" or "effortless action"—invites us to act in harmony with the flow of life, rather than against it. Trying without trying, then, becomes a practice of aligning with that natural flow.

It’s the idea that you can be fully engaged in something without gripping it so tightly that it slips through your fingers.

And yes, it’s just as maddening as it sounds.

Back to golf: the best shots I take—the ones that feel smooth, fluid, “flush”—are never the ones I muscle. They’re the ones where I’m fully present, but relaxed. Focused, but not tense. Intentional, but not controlling.

This is rare. And difficult.
Which, of course, invites… more effort.

That’s the paradox: trying to not try too hard takes real work.

Why This Shows Up Everywhere

I see this outside of golf all the time.

You hate your job. So you start looking. You send out resumes, meet with recruiters, take dozens of networking calls. You're doing all the right things.

But nothing’s happening. At least, not fast enough.

And even if something is happening under the surface, it’s not in your control. You can’t force the right role to appear. You can’t will clarity into existence. The harder you try, the more frustrated you get.

This is especially confusing if you’ve built a career in a profession where effort is worshipped.

Take law, for example. When I was a lawyer, clients expected the midnight oil—work harder, think faster, produce more. And yes, putting in that effort made more stuff—more emails, drafts, calls.

But was the work better?

No. It was just more strained. More exhausting. More frustrating—for me, and for the client.

Letting Go of Force

So maybe the goal isn’t to eliminate effort, but to shift how we experience it.

Effortless effort isn’t about laziness or apathy. It’s about intentional presence. It’s about how we do what we do.

Let’s go back to that golf swing.

If I shorten my backswing just slightly, I don’t need to twist as hard. My head stays still. My energy is more focused. I let gravity do the work. And even though it feels like I’m not swinging as hard, the ball goes farther—and truer—than when I try to muscle it through.

It’s not that I’m not trying. I’m just not forcing.

And that’s the lesson.

When You’re In a Transition, Don’t Push So Hard

If you're navigating a big life change—a new career, a relocation, a reinvention—it’s natural to want to rush through the messy middle.

You want the next chapter to arrive. Yesterday.

But transitions don’t work like that. They take time. They unfold.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his teaching on mindfulness, describes patience as the art of allowing things to happen in their own time. Of realizing that every moment is already full. That we don’t have to add anything extra to make it more meaningful. In his foundational book Wherever You Go, There You Are, Kabat-Zinn writes, "Patience is an ever-present alternative to the mind's endemic restlessness and impatience. It reminds us that we don’t have to fill every moment with activity or thought. We can allow life to unfold at its own rhythm." This echoes the Buddhist understanding that clinging—even to the idea of progress—creates suffering (dukkha). True mindfulness involves releasing the craving for a different moment, and instead inhabiting the one we’re in. This can be especially difficult during times of transition, when our instinct is to accelerate toward resolution. But by practicing patience, we soften our grip on needing outcomes and begin to cultivate trust in the process itself.

Try Without Forcing

This doesn’t mean you stop doing. You still mow the lawn. Write the blog post. Make par on the 7th hole.

But see what happens when you shift your relationship to the doing.

Smell the air. Feel the sun. Notice the texture of the task. See how it feels.

And then ask:
Does this still feel like effort?
Or does it feel like something else?

TL;DR:

If you’re pushing and pushing and getting nowhere, consider this: maybe the path forward doesn’t require more force—but less.
Not because you’re giving up.
But because you’re finally giving in—to the flow of the moment, and the pace of change.