Don’t Make It So Hard To Do
Steps to getting things done.
I listen to various podcasts, read tons of books, listen to many people explain themselves, and many common themes appear.
It doesn’t matter whether people are extremely famous or just like you and me.
We all deal with the same issues, many of which I have written about before, and I promise to write about them again.
But let’s start with one that always impedes doing what we dream of doing and is so much fun to remove.
Yes, fun. Stick with me, and I’ll explain.
Here’s what it is:
We make things hard to do.
For now, we will not deal with why we do this.
Let’s move on to the fun part of not doing it.
Here’s what happens.
We have an idea to do something, from cleaning our closet, to building a new business, or going on an adventure.
What happens next is the problem.
First, the human mind inputs all the possibilities of how hard it will be.
It worries about what might happen, how much money and time it will take, how hard it will be, and what people will say.
Often, this results in deciding that it will be just too hard to do.
And life goes into stuck mode again.
Stop it. Literally, stop it. Stop listening to that talk.
Those are not your thoughts.
It’s what Steven Pressfield, in his book “The War Of Art,” calls resistance. Whatever name you call it, just let it keep rambling along without paying attention.
Instead, decide based on what you want.
Take out the logistics of doing it to make that decision.
Do you want to clean your closet, build a new business, or go on an adventure?
Say yes or no. Yes?
Now, you can deal with the logistics of the decision.
Take that decision apart into steps. What’s first?
Figure out the logistics for that step only.
When that’s done, move on to the next step.
Each logistic piece needs a decision—one at a time.
Along the way, you may decide you don’t want to do your idea after all.
But you will still have achieved something. You will have a clearer vision of what you want to do without all the head-related clutter getting in the way.
If you still want to do the “thing,” here’s the next step.
Don’t make it so hard to do.
Yes, removing the decision from the logistics starts that process.
But there is more. And here are two ideas that will help.
Consistently ask yourself:
>Is there an easier way?
>Do I have to do it that way?
>What if I did it this way?
Next, break out the doing of it into tiny chunks.
Start with five minutes.
Just do five minutes of it—every day.
The chunks may grow into bigger chunks over time but start with five minutes.
Five minutes moves the human mind away from always making what we want to do harder than necessary and tricks it.
That’s the fun part. The trickery!
We get to trick our human mind because, really, that is not who we are. We are much more than that.
Ideas come from someplace other than the human brain.
We all have had the experience of having an idea float in for us to use (or abuse). In “Big Magic,” Liz Gilbert does a masterful job of explaining this process.
Whether you call it the Infinite, God, the Universe, or, as I often use the term, Angel Ideas, they are ours to keep and use for our benefit.
Here are your steps:
>Accept an idea.
>Examine the idea to see if you want to keep it.
>Decide to follow the idea without including the logistics in the decision.
>Turn the logistics into one decision at a time.
>Keep asking if there is an easier way.
>Break it down into chunks of tiny pieces.
Most of all, stop believing that the voice in your head tells you the truth and that it is you.
It doesn’t, and it isn’t.
Listen instead to your heart, your gut, and the still small voice within, and then and only then, use your intellect to accomplish what the heart wants.
See — fun!
Let’s go. Make it easy and play!
