“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” -Confucius

 

You’re probably sabotaging yourself. Yup, you read that last sentence correctly. Odds are you’re getting in the way of the things you want to accomplish in life, and the reason is probably simple. Simple, because you may not be keeping things simple.

If you had to pick, would you rather something be simple, or complex? Would you rather have a task be unnecessarily hard to accomplish, or just as difficult as it needs to be? Simply put (pun intended), we make things harder on ourselves when we either create, or seek out, complexity. Because complexity isn’t better, better is better.

I’ll lead into this article with a quote from Eric Greitens. He says,

“… simple tasks offer fewer excuses. The more complicated you make something, the more excuses you create for yourself. The second is that beginning something new, even when it’s simple, is hard. It makes us afraid. People introduce complication as a way to avoid beginning.”

 

So, how are you adding complexity?

That’s it for the blog thanks for reading…kidding. It is a powerful message though, isn’t it? So, take a second, and re-read that previous paragraph again. How are you adding complexity to give yourself an excuse if things don’t pan out how you want? Are you over complicating things to avoid starting something? Could you make something that you feel is complicated, simpler?

The utility of simplicity can be seen if we think of a GPS. Say you have somewhere to get to and there are two paths you can take. One of the paths takes you 30 minutes and has a few turns. However, the other takes 45 minutes and has tons of unnecessary turns. Which path would you choose? The first one of course, because although both paths eventually get you where you want to go, one does so with less time and effort wasted. Why take a more complex path when there is a simpler, more efficient one?

Besides complexity making tasks more challenging than needed, it can cause us to not even start. Many of us like to procrastinate on things that we need to get done. We procrastinate on doing our homework, running those errands we need to get done, emailing someone back, and the list goes on. Heck, sometimes it feels like we even procrastinate on procrastinating. Then, as the due date for those objectives looms closer, we start to feel our friend anxiety creep in.

“Hey friend, you know that project you’ve had weeks to do is due tomorrow, right? Are you going to finish it in time?” our anxiety asks us. So, how do we make getting started easier? By keeping things simple.

 

Keep it simple, stup-, I mean, friend.

Complexity prevents us from beginning because we make something that wasn’t an issue, an issue. We think, “This goal is going to be tough to achieve so the steps to get there must be hard and difficult as well.” This fabricated complexity creates both problems and excuses for us. We scare ourselves into inaction by turning small, simple tasks, into impossibly large tasks. Tasks so large and daunting that we lose the courage to start.

This fear of starting is self-created though, just like we self-create additional complexity. Instead, we’d be much better off chunking up this giant, complex task into smaller, simpler tasks to complete. We start off simple by thinking about the first step we can take to get started, no matter how small. Some step that we know we can knock out and then we start.

Even if we do get started though, then we often use complexity to create a way out for ourselves. An excuse or reason to fall back on if we fail. When we don’t hit our goal we say to ourselves, “Well of course I failed, there was no way to accomplish such a challenging task.” Only there was, if we had just kept things simple.

One caveat though: some things, understandably so, must be complex. To a point we could simplify quantum physics if we were an expert on the subject, but some of it would have to be complex. It couldn’t be simplified past a certain point. But most things in our lives can be distilled down to a simpler form, without the added complexity.

Instead of chasing the next fad diet or getting bogged down in every detail of a diet, you could start with improving a single meal. Instead of attempting some crazy exercise you saw on the Gram of Insta, learn the basic core four movements which are: the squat, hip hinge, push-up, and inverted row. Then, proceed to do a crap load of these over time and get proficient with the technique.

At BSP NOVA, for example, one can look to our small group personal training programs to see simplicity in action. There aren’t convoluted exercises thrown into someone’s program for the sake of novelty. Exercises may at times seem more complex, but this is because they’ve progressed from the simplest variation of that exercise, to the more complex one you see now. Complexity gets layered on as competency in the movement increases. For example, someone might start out simple learning a basic goblet squat, but as they gain competency in that movement they learn zercher squats.

 

Simply, simplify

Take a deep dive into the pool of your life. In what areas of your life are you creating more complexity? Is there a way to simplify this, so that it makes everything else better or easier? If so, do it. Don’t allow complexity to rear its ugly head and prevent you from starting. Don’t allow it to offer you excuses. Start simple and keep it simple.

If we can keep things simple, or make a complex idea simpler, we should. What does making something complex do? Honestly, think about it, does it provide us any value at all? I don’t think so. The only value it provides us is false value to make us feel good. It’s a stroke to our ego but not much more.

It makes us feel good to make something sound more difficult than it needs to be when giving advice. It makes us feel more intelligent because it seems we know what we are talking about. Also, by adding complexity to a task, it can make it feel more worthwhile when we accomplish it. When a task is made more complex, there is more difficulty involved in finishing that task. By being more difficult it feels as though we are achieving something greater than we are, because we added more variables to it.