How Simple? Ridiculously.

I have a love affair with ease. I miss it when I don’t have it. I want more, when I do.

Ironically, it can be hard to let things be easy, and complicated to recognize that ease doesn’t always mean easy.

Recently, there hasn’t been as much ease in my business as I’d like. Sure the coaching part is made of ease (Unbelievable Ease to be exact) but the rest of my business? After my last trip a month ago, not so much.

Questions flooded my mind.

Why am I struggling with this? What’s going on? Am I afraid of failure? Afraid of success? Lacking willpower? Just plain lazy?

I started digging into those questions, even though I know that why isn’t the most helpful thing to ask. I contemplated complicated strategies to get my work done, detailed plans, complicated systems, major accountability.

After getting myself all twisted up about it, I eventually remembered what question is more helpful than why, and gave myself enough space to see what was really going on.

I looked at what’s working well, and what isn’t. What stood out most to me was how easy it is for me to follow my marathon training plan, even though the training itself isn’t easy. I explored what about it works so well for me, and how I could transfer that ease and effectiveness.

Turns out I work best when I have a simple yet detailed plan, with many of the decisions made up front. In fact deciding is one of the biggest parts of it for me. It’s not just about saving myself from having to make a million different decisions as I go, but deciding that I’m going to do it. That I’m committing to it. That kind of deciding, coupled with a simple plan makes all the difference for me.

Not just simple, but ridiculously simple.

My plan that is working flawlessly for the last couple of weeks? To work a certain number of hours each week (not much more, and definitely not less) and to create a list of priorities/to-dos at the beginning of each week that I send to my coach and an accountability buddy.

The time constraint has been beneficial in a surprising way. As a working-from-home, self-employed person, I can work pretty much anytime, which can lead to both working too much and not enough (I can do that later!). But knowing that I have to get everything done in a certain amount of time has led me to be exceptionally efficient. It certainly helps to know exactly what needs to get done before I sit down every day too.

This is one of those things that in retrospect seems so obvious, and certainly less than confetti-worthy. Yet, it took me some time to get here, so I’m celebrating.

What about you?

Is there something you’re struggling with that could use a little simplification? How can you give yourself enough space to discover the most simple, basic way to bring ease to that situation?

Photo: That’s a few weeks from my marathon training plan. Why, yes, I do check off my completed runs with an orange heart.