Less Hustle = More Success?

Why belief outperforms hustle, and the smarter path most high-achievers ignore. Exploring Joseph Murphy’s classic that teaches us about how our minds work.

We have two minds

Recently, I read a book by Joseph Murphy called The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, a classic from the 1960s that bridges spirituality and mindset in a beautifully simple way.

Here’s the premise in a nutshell:

We all have two minds.

The conscious mind is the one we’re aware of…it thinks, reasons, decides. It’s the voice in your head you identify with. Think of it as the navigator of your life’s experience as you know it.

Here’s where it gets fascinating: we also have a subconscious mind. This is like a creative engineer that works behind the scenes, faithfully shaping your reality based on whatever the conscious mind accepts as true.

If this sounds over the top, you’d better read the rest…

Your subconscious mind is incredibly powerful. It accepts what you repeatedly think and believe, and then works tirelessly to bring that into reality.

What you believe is expressed in your life as you know it

What you believe to be true ends up becoming your experience.

Murphy even goes a step further. He says your subconscious taps into a universal pool of intelligence and power…think of it as universal consciousness that connects all of us and all things in this universe.

When you tap into this field, things start to align to make your desires into reality.

(PS: If you’re into quantum physics, universal consciousness has fascinating connections with the theory of entanglement. More on quantum physics and its ties to spirituality here.)

Less strain = more support from the universe

In other words:
When you choose your beliefs, you let the universal consciousness (which is connected to your subconscious) go to work for you.

And the less you force, the more it flows.

That’s… the opposite of how we usually think success happens.

Grind. Hustle. No sleep. Push through. Burnout.
That’s the default story most of us see as the way to success.

(And yes, grind often leads to success because we believe that's the way it works. That belief itself makes it real… more on that soon.)

Inevitably, if we don’t work as hard, we may believe that we’re undeserving of success which also then happens…

But what if that’s not the only way?

In fact, Murphy and several others argue that there is a path that is more effortless with higher chances of leading to success.

One that does not come with grind, hustle, and no sleep.

The real question is:
Does it actually work?

Proof of magic

"Whatever you impress on your subconscious mind is expressed on the screen of space as conditions, experiences, and events."
—Joseph Murphy

If you’re someone who is skeptical about spirituality, here are some concepts explained by Joseph Murphy that show us how what you believe is projected into your reality.

The caveat is that it’s always too good to be true —> The subconscious doesn’t argue with your conscious mind.

If you have negative thoughts or focus on fear, anxiety, stress, and worry —> those are the things that are manifested in your life.

Let’s just say it’s another take on the law of attraction and manifestation but one that puts all the power in you.

Proof 1: Your subconscious is pro life

A good way to start gathering proof of this magic is to think about the creative activity that keeps you alive without your conscious awareness i.e. your heart beating, your brain working, your breathing, your cell functions, etc.

Your subconscious mind is pro-life. It wants you to thrive. That is why when you get a cut on your skin, it heals itself with you knowing the how. Or when you eat an apple, it converts the apple into you (and not a dog or a cat).

It naturally supports your life.

You experience your life through your conscious, aware mind, which takes in sensory inputs from your 5 senses and then projects them as experiences, events, and life as you experience it.

Proof 2: Medicine and placebo effect

Here’s an interesting one…

When we feel ill and want to get better, we usually turn to a doctor or take a pill to fix it. But Murphy suggests it’s not the treatment itself…rather it’s our belief that this treatment will cure me which executes the cure.

That’s exactly what the placebo effect is…when a patient is given a non-drug but believes it’s the real thing. Their mind expects it to work… and somehow, it does.

In fact, placebo is widely used in scientific studies to separate the actual impact of a drug from the healing power of your own belief.

Proof 3: Hypnosis

Here’s one that blew my mind…

Hypnosis is a state where the conscious mind becomes quiet and the subconscious mind becomes more open to influence. In deep hypnosis, you can lose awareness of your conscious mind entirely. You can self-induce hypnosis or have someone else do this to you.

Murphy shares a striking case by Dr. M. Bourru, a 19th-century French physician, who hypnotized a patient and suggested that his nose would start bleeding at a specific time. Sure enough, at that time prescribed, without any physical cause, the nosebleed happened.

So how did this happen?

Dr. M. Bourru instilled the idea in the patient’s subconscious mind that he will bleed at the particular time…and the belief made that into a reality.

Proof 4: Miraculous healings

Hypnosis and the subconscious mind’s ability to accept suggestions as truth has been linked to countless cases of seemingly miraculous healing.

When you deeply accept the belief that the same creative, infinite intelligence that designed your body also knows how to heal it, healing happens…

Murphy shares stories of a paralyzed individual who walked again through belief alone and many more astonishing examples that show just how far the mind can go when it fully accepts healing as reality (especially when deemed medically impossible).

Think Inception, but applied to self-healing…

Speaking of miraculous healing, if you haven’t read Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eben Alexander, I highly recommend it. He’s a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon (not into spirituality) who goes through a near death experience and miraculously reemerges to life with incredible proof of consciousness, this infinite creative intelligence, and afterlife.

Proof 5: Religious rituals

Murphy claims that religious rituals work because they strengthen your belief that what you desire is already happening.

When you are told that performing x, y, and z in an often complicated, meticulous sequence will give you what you want…

…you believe that this effort is working and you have faith that what you asked for will happen!

Interesting, right?

So it’s not so much the ritual itself but again, the belief that makes the thing happen for you.

Proof 6: Fortune Telling

This one has always been a no-no for me.

The power of beliefs is too powerful to let someone else influence my life story.

While this is not to discard fortune telling, if you believe a fortune teller (or anyone who poses as one) and accept that as reality, it is dangerous —> what you believe will now be manifested in your life… the good and the bad.

I’d rather leave things to chance.

No grind = No success

Anyway, coming back full circle to this premise.

I hope I’ve convinced you how powerful your beliefs can be in creating the life that you want. If you believe that the only way to success is grind, hustle, and no sleep —> that is how you’ll get it!

So choose your beliefs wisely…

I highly recommend reading The Power of Your Subconscious Mind if you haven’t yet.

Experiment for yourself

I also recommend doing smaller experiments to build up proof on how powerful your subconscious can really be.

If you're anything like me - curious but skeptical about all things spiritual, it took a lot to accept all of this as true but experiencing it for yourself can be life-changing, literally…

…so try it!

PS: If you like this topic (as much as I do), do leave a comment so I know this tickles your curiosity!