Haven’t you ever looked at animals in the wild and wondered . . . I mean, they’re not paying a mortgage, working a job or devising strategies to make ends meet. Sure, they’re contributing to the ecosystem, but they’re not doing it to get a salary. They’re simply being what they really are and the result is that the whole system works.

Derek Rydall says that this is precisely how we are designed to grow and unfold – not through strategies, struggle and striving, but with ease. He says wild animals do it because they’re naturally tapped into their innate pattern and purpose and don’t have an ego to deviate from it.

The number one reason an ecosystem thrives is because every element is doing what it’s designed to do. “The oak tree doesn’t moonlight as a pine tree, the squirrel doesn’t do the work of a bird, the sun doesn’t try to rain, and the clouds don’t try to shine,” says Derek.

That same system is supposed to operate in your life. You were designed for the same level of effectiveness, power and contribution. If you don’t understand this, you’ll keep looking outside of yourself to see what society believes you should do.

According to Derek the chronic issues we struggle with are often symptoms of a deeper problem – being disconnected from who we are. The fastest way to heal is to commit to living the life and giving the gifts you were born for.

Henk JM Schram, founder of Crack Your Egg Enterprises, says that you shouldn’t try to live up to externally imposed images of who you should be if they’re not in line with your own deeper actuating motives and values. If you do, you set yourself up for a consistent sense of struggle and lack of fulfilment.

Physicist, philosopher and management expert, Danah Zohar, talks about getting in touch with your own, personal motives. Purpose and meaning are concepts central to that and make up your ‘inner universe’. When you’re in touch with your ‘inner universe,’ you can live the life that fully matches who you are. He says that happiness is an automatic side-effect of being the authentic you.

According to Henk, this is pretty much what psychologist Abraham Maslow meant. Maslow, famous for his hierarchy of needs, stated that self-actualization is the ultimate state of human development. He described this as a spiritual condition in which people are purely creative, playful and tolerant.

Henk writes that there is a specific group of people that can teach us a lot about this condition – young children. In practical terms this could be described as acknowledging the wonder of life and the amazing experiences it brings.

Allow things to come as they do, especially emotions. Life coach Christy Whitman talks about her small son sitting on the backseat of the car crying: “I miss my home. I don’t want to be away from my home.”

Christy just reached out to the backseat and patted him. She didn’t say that he shouldn’t feel like that.

So, the one moment he was crying and literally seconds later he pointed at something through the window and he was laughing. Emotions change that quickly if you allow yourself to feel them without judging them.

Henk says you should allow things because what you want often don’t come in the way you pictured in your mind’s eye and your greatest opportunities are often disguised as your biggest problems. You have a lot to say about ‘the what’, but little about ‘the how’.

So, fantasize the way a child would – imagine the result without feeling the need to work out how to get there. If you can get preconceived notions out of the way, life can open up doors you may not be able to imagine right now.

Make an effort to become aware of all the subtle ways in which opportunities come your way. It’s probably different to how you thought things should happen. Where on earth did we get the idea that we should struggle to earn a living? It would be much better to think of it as delivering the gift we came here to create.

Girlfriend, it’s very much like “the lilies of the field” . . . “they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin . . . Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns . . .”