Hey Reader! 👋🏻👋🏻👋🏻

What a week! It’s been rock and roll for me, but I’m feeling great. Hope that you’re doing well.

Let’s jump right in!!

Kiss Complexity Goodbye: How to Assure Success

Let me start off by saying something that may be controversial – success is simple.

That goes completely against the story that most of us tell ourselves, most of the time. As silly as it seems, we want to believe that it’s complicated. Because if it was simple, we would already be successful, right?

Success is simple. But it is not easy.

The idea of success often gets tangled up in convoluted strategies and complex plans. But you can’t think your way out when you haven’t yet taken action. We over-complicate things as it makes us feel better. When you spend time planning and strategizing, you feel good; you’re convincing myself that you’re making progress. Instead, you’re avoiding the work.

Maybe you decide you need to take a course, to learn the latest techniques. This is you tricking yourself into feeling productive, when the reality is you’re putting off what needs to be done.

The truth is:

If you want to lose weight, you need to eat healthier and exercise more.
If you want to write a book, you need to write consistently.
If you want to get promoted, you must produce consistent results, and they need to be results that matter to your organization.
If you want a calmer mind, you need to meditate.
If you want to connect on a deeper level with people around you, you need to put your phone away.

You get the point. The solutions are all right there, right in front of you. You are smart and don’t need me to tell you the solution. You already know.

And yet – somehow you’re still stuck.

Why?

The answer is simple. You’re not doing the things you know you need to be doing. You aren’t executing on the concrete, specific tasks you already know you need to do. Instead, you’re searching for a way to let yourself off the hook.

Just get started. In doing so, you will make progress, fail, learn, and adapt. You’ll wonder why you spent so much time putting it off, discovering that you’ve put more energy and time into thinking about the thing than what it took to actually do the thing. Even if you are facing a complicated, gnarly problem, you can break it down into simple, actionable steps. And as you take each step, you’ll gain the knowledge, insights, and experience you need to show the next step.

Follow the KISS rule; “Keep it simple, stupid”.

You got this!

Quotation that I have been pondering

One of the most common reasons people give for not taking their life in the direction they truly desire is “they don’t have the time.” I call BS. How can you say you’re too busy to live your life properly? Writer, artist, and podcast host Debbie Millman summed it up well with this quote on busyness:

“Busy is a decision. We do the things we want to do, period. If we say we are too busy, it is just shorthand for the thing being “not important enough” or “not a priority.” Busy is not a badge. You don’t find the time to make things, you make the time to do things.”

What important actions are you putting off in your life because “you’re too busy”? What would it mean to choose differently?

Journal Prompt

We tend to always add to our to-do list, thinking that is the way to ensure we are making progress. But simplifying is often about removing something rather than adding one more thing to the pile.

“What one thing can I decide NOT to do?”

Reflect on that question. And then don’t do it. You’ll thank yourself for the time and space you create.

Call to Adventure

Feeling overwhelmed and like simplifying just isn’t possible for you? I’ve been there and have helped others who’ve faced that same problem. You don’t need to face it alone.

Nor do you need to remain stuck.

But you do need to decide you’ve had enough and that it’s time for change.

When you’re ready, I can help.

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