Episode 97: Real, Brave, & Unstoppable is on hiatus through the beginning of August so I can put some energy into planning my September retreat, RISE! In the meantime, I am re-airing some of the most popular episodes of all time. In this episode, Why Do We Make Things So Complicated? I talk about trying on a different perspective for when things feel hard or complicated.
Show Notes:
This episode is a re-air of episode #57: Why Do We Make Things So Complicated?
Are you one of those people who likes to make the simplest things complicated?
I’ve been there! That’s kind of my default way of handling things and it used to frustrate me SO much. But, what if things being hard or complicated was a necessary part of the process?
When things feel hard or sticky, we figure stuff out. We are called to create new ways of doing things. Oftentimes, this results in figuring out a simpler way!
But, we have to have the awareness to realize this and implement a simpler solution next time.
Listen to this MVP (most valuable podcast) to learn more about when we make things hard or complicated.
I also share details of my upcoming September retreat – don’t miss hearing about it!
Do you want different results? Do you want to love your life?
Introducing Rise: The Live Retreat Experience
September 8-10 in the gorgeous and serene countryside of Maryland, just 45 minutes outside of Washington, DC.
This retreat is your gateway to writing the next chapter of your life – a chapter that is bigger and better than the one before it. One where you don’t feel stuck and overwhelmed. One where you leave behind your limits and RISE into what’s possible for you.
There are only eight spots available. Is one of them yours?
Learn more at https://www.kortneyrivard.com/retreat
Hurry! Space is limited and it’s filling fast.
Register by July 31st to take advantage of early bird pricing!
Resources
Feeling stuck? Don’t know where to start?
Start here: schedule a Strategy Session to discover how you can start.
Schedule a call at www.kortneyrivard.com/lets-talk
Visit https://kortneyrivard.com/lovelife to download a free guide on how to create a life you love!
Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/kortneyrivard)
Other episodes:
- Ep 122: How to Take the High Road When People Say Mean Things About You
- Ep 121: 5 Ways to Make the Mirror Your Friend
- Ep 120: Getting Back on the Goals Bandwagon – Setting Better Goals
- Ep 119: Slow Down! How to Embrace Getting Still and Waiting Patiently
- How to Fix Your All-or-Nothing Thinking
The Real, Brave, & Unstoppable full episode catalog
Transcript:
Episode 97: Replay of #57, Why Do We Make Things So Complicated?
Hello, and welcome back for another MVP episode of real brave and unstoppable. Today I am replaying episode number 57. Why do we make things so complicated? I am raising my hand really wildly over here right now. You can’t see me, but like I am notorious for making everything complicated. When I was looking through most popular episodes, this one came up and I love it because, um, the idea that I talk about in it is, when we say like, why are things so hard or why does it have to be so hard? And. I had, this was about a year ago. I had the realization like, well, what if it’s supposed to be hard? Like what if it’s just supposed to be hard and it’s helping me try to find a simpler solution? First of all, you need to be aware that you’re making things complicated, but second of all, if you didn’t have a way to practice making things simpler, you would never have to right. So what if we were to see things that feel complicated or hard as a way to help us figure out a simpler solution? And so I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that. In seeing a hard situation as a learning opportunity. That’s kind of my mindset. Trust me, I’ve worked on that mindset for a long time, but it’s kind of my default mindset these days. It’s the mindset. I help people in my coaching practice get to as well. So sidebar. If you want to learn how to make things less complicated for yourself. Go ahead and go to kortneyrivard.com/ lets- talk and schedule a strategy session with me. We will talk all about complicated and simple. But I can laugh at myself now. Cause I, uh, I see, I see some of the ways I made things really complicated and. And now, I’ve created some more elegant, simple solutions for my life in some ways, but I’m always learning that I still make things complicated and, and that’s just part of who I am and it’s okay. Because it teaches me to look for other options. Okay. So before I let you dive into the episode. I have a retreat coming up in September. All themed around possibility. If you’re feeling like a little lost in your life, or maybe you feel like you’re not feeling a lot of purpose or fulfillment, maybe even like hamster wheel comes to mind or Groundhog day. Everyday kind of feels the same. You feel like you’re going through the motions. Your life doesn’t have to be that way. Trust me. I talked to a lot of people who feel that way there. They’re wanting more from their life, but they just don’t really know how or what, and it’s, it doesn’t feel good because they, they sense that there could be more, but they don’t know where to start. And the truth is a lot of people don’t ever take that step to start to figure it out. They just assume that they have to settle and they settle and then they get to the end of their life and they have regrets. That’s the number one regret of the dying folks. Is that they didn’t live the life that was true to them. So in this retreat, we really will dig into what, what is the life you don’t want? You know, what is not working for you? And what do you really want? That’s a hard question for a lot of people and we’re going to explore it. And sometimes the problem with the question is that people don’t think that they’re worth having it. They don’t think they’re capable of having what they want. And that’s really the goal of the retreat. Is to discover what it is you believe about yourself that says you can’t have that. And you will leave the retreat, seeing something that was hidden from your view before. You’ll have some new idea of what’s possible for you. And you’ll feel motivated and inspired. To move closer to that. This is the work I love. I’m super excited to help eight lucky women get to this place. It’s happening as September 7th through 11th in Dickerson, Maryland, which is outside of Washington, DC. It’s in the gorgeous countryside of Maryland. We’ll be staying in a renovated farmhouse. On I don’t even know how many acres, but it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful. It’s close to the place I hike a lot. We’re going to go hiking. We’re going to do yoga. We’re going to meditate. We’re going to transform in this beautiful container. And you will leave this retreat. In some way, a different person than when you came into it. So, if that resonates at all for you, if you want to really start the process of creating the life you want. I invite you to visit kortneyrivard.com/retreat. And fill out the application, get on a call with me and we will talk about it. See if it’s a good fit for you. There are only eight spots available. Most of those are full. So make sure you fill out that application, a S a P. All right. Friends with that. Enjoy this episode. Why do we make things so complicated? Hey everyone. And welcome back to real, brave and unstoppable. You are listening to episode number 57. I hope you’re all enjoying your June so far. Well, by the time this drop, this will drop on July 1st, 2021. So hope you had a good tune. And I hope you’re excited for 4th of July plans. If you’re in. The states. If you’re not, if you’re in another part of the world, well, Yeah, just have a good weekend. It’s kind of nice this year, 4th of July is on a Sunday. So, it just kinda opens the, opens the door for more cookout and being outdoors pool type activities. Fireworks. all of those kinds of things. most people have Monday off in the states, so it’s kinda nice to have it fall. At that time in the week. So it’s been super, super hot here. I’ve had just a little update on my running. Escapades. I think I mentioned. Or I know I mentioned that I was going to be doing a half marathon in July and I just decided I don’t really want to do a summer half marathon. And. Why should I, because I don’t have to so right. Why, why make things harder on myself? which is actually what today’s episode is about. So, yes. Episode number 57 today. I’m going to talk about. why do we make things so hard for ourselves? why do we over-complicate and how can we bring a little more ease and flow and, you know, minimalism or simplicity to our lives. I’ve always been somebody who makes things harder than they need to be. Although I’m getting a lot better in my. In my wise old age that, I’m starting to see that the most complex solution, Doesn’t mean it’s a better solution. so today I’m going to talk about that. Like, why do we do that? Why do we gravitate towards making things harder? Because a lot of us do it’s pretty common. And I’ll talk about why that is. I’ve always been a perfectionist. I call myself a recovering perfectionist at this point in my life because I’ve dropped a lot of those. Perfectionist. Traits I’ve sort of lost the need for them. I’ve realized that they’re born kind of out of fear of, you know, failure criticism judgment. Things like that. So I’ve done a lot of work to be able to let go of those things. But I think that as you growing up a perfectionist, a lot of my adult life, most of my adult life being a pretty hardcore perfectionist, I. Think that when there was a simple solution that was offered to me. It didn’t really feed my ego. and this was a subconscious thing. Of course I didn’t. Just consciously go, looking to feed my ego, like who does. Right. But I think that as somebody who I have a lot of baggage around the word smart, just because growing up, like that was how I found my validation is when people, saw me as smart or talented. And I would get my approval that way. And so, you know, having something be complicated. Made me feel smart. Like I was tackling this complex complicated problem. And coming up with the solution that was, you know, complex. And I think. I’m guessing if you have any of this perfectionism going on, that you probably relate to that. If you really think about it. if it sort of resonates a little bit, but you’re not sure, I really encourage you to take that idea and go think about it. Like what, what is it, if you’re a perfectionist. What is it about a complicated solution or a complicated path that feels good to you. But I never really trusted myself that a simple flowing solution was like good enough, because I really didn’t trust that I was good enough without that. Like, I didn’t just know that being a human being and existing as a human being was enough. I always had to have that. External validation that says, yeah, Courtney you’re smart or you’re talented, or you’re really good at that. I couldn’t give myself that. and I think a lot of people who are perfectionist, I think really most people who are perfectionist, can relate to that. So I have a lot of examples. Throughout my life, where I’ve made things pretty complicated And most of this over complication came from the fact that I didn’t really know how to trust myself or my intuition or, God, the universe source, spirit, whatever you personally want to call it. I didn’t know how to trust that and like, let that flow, I didn’t know how to believe myself or you know, how to, how to let myself be right. That what I believe to be true was. Was right and valid. you know, and I didn’t know how to slow down and also see the beauty in just a completely simple solution. you know, or keep in mind, I am a trained engineer, so a lot of left brain stuff going on. I love math. I love, you know, processes. I love. I love that kind of stuff. And that kind of stuff, all it made me feel really worthy because it was something that people thought of as you know, I think in our society and things have probably changed a lot, but. for a long time, people have really valued those, You know, those technical analytical, left brain skills a lot. And so it’s really easy to fall into that trap. So most recently. And, and this was maybe six months ago. I started to pick up on this, but I found myself. Saying, this is so hard. A lot. I noticed that I was, I became really aware of this feeling of labor and like, you know, everything just felt like. It was complex and not flowing and not easy. And. At the time I was in a place where I was really, really, working hard to grow my business from, you know, the ground up, I’m learning a new craft and balancing that with a full-time job, which I recently gave my notice for. Yay. kids, a relationship, all of the things. And I started to notice this and how every time I said, this is so hard. My energy really shifted to a lower, vibration. And I could really feel the shift in my body that I just didn’t like. And let me just be clear. It took me a little while before I realized this was happening. I think it took me getting on, I sometimes do like virtual coffee chats with people just to connect, you know, network. In the days of COVID. Virtual networking. And I was on a call with someone who’s also a coach and she just really brought this. Energy, which I personally didn’t. Jive with, well, it was not because it was, I was in a lower energy. That was part of it. But also it just didn’t mesh with me. Think about if you’ve ever been in a conversation with someone and something just feels off, you feel like almost repelled, like I got to get out of this. Right. But this particular call was really, an opportunity for me to notice I was in this, this is hard energy. And so that was the point where I realized. I keep saying this, I’m always saying, oh, it’s so hard. It’s so hard. It’s so hard. This is hard. This is so much work, but, and so, you know, you think about that when you’re saying that all the time, it’s not really helpful, right? So I kind of, you know, I walked away from that call realizing that, and I, I didn’t really do a lot with it. I just kind of kept it in my mind. And one day, I don’t know why this popped into my head. I might’ve been listening to a podcast or, you know, something like that, but I had this thought of what if it’s just supposed to be hard right now and that’s just okay. Have you ever thought that like it’s hard and you complain about it being hard or you feel like there’s this drain on you because it’s hard. But what if it’s supposed to be. And that’s just okay. The, the hard is, is there for a purpose right now? What if now consider this? What if it’s just supposed to be hard? Because all of it. All of the hard, all of the things are being put in your path. It was being put here by the universe. God source spirit. To give you the awareness or to teach you that. You need to try to make it easier. It’s challenging. You. To learn how to make it simpler because we don’t really want to live in the hard, I mean, I don’t. I’m guessing most of us don’t. I guarantee you that most of the time. If you ask somebody what they really want in life, no matter what they say, if you keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper, it’s all gonna come down to that. So, you know, making life easier and experiencing more flow. that’s what we want. Right. And so what if these times where we say, oh, it’s so hard. What if it’s supposed to be hard? Because it’s like a message that says, okay, Wow. You’ve just become aware that something is hard now. How can you make it easier? Some of the most famous geniuses in life. The reason why they are considered genius is because they took something extremely complex. And boiled it down to something. Beautifully simple. Look at Albert Einstein, the theory of relativity E equals MC squared. It’s beautiful and elegant, but it’s extremely complex. being an engineer, like I’ve seen this over and over and over again, and, physics and stuff like that. In lectures, the worst part ever is when your professor would go through and a derive the equation for something. And it ends up being this simple thing and it’s like, well, why can’t you just tell me the equation? Which yeah, you can, but it’s when you’re in. This is a total tangent, but when you’re studying physics and engineering, Helps a lot to be able to understand how you got there, but, I digress. So anyway. I really believe strongly that everything in our lives is present. For some reason, you always get what you need when the student is ready, the teacher appears those kinds of things and whether or not you use what is being put in front of you as an opportunity to grow in this case, learning how to bring more ease and flow and simplicity to your life. That is totally up to you. And a lot of people keep proceeding through their life. Gravitating towards that complexity, making things really hard. And that’s totally your choice, but. I think that most of us really do want to make life easier and experience more flow, more peace, more. Simplicity. So. Let’s dive in. What if the hard things are really supposed to be hard. How does that shift? How you think about hard? if you think about something, feeling difficult, feeling hard. what comes up for you? If you think about something being difficult or hard as a signal. For you to start figuring out how you can make it not be hard. How does that feel different than if you just think about something as hard? So the idea that maybe it’s just bringing awareness to. For me that feels. Pretty exciting. Is, it’s another, it’s a problem for me to solve, but it’s also calling me to look for a simple solution. Right. I think at the end of the day, Nobody really loves hard. If you think you love hard, I think I would challenge you to dig a little deeper. But when you realize something is difficult. You’re probably going to desire more ease. If you really get honest with yourself, right. So that’s the challenge. Like how can I make this easier? Why am I making it so hard right now? Why am I letting it be hard? What are some ways that I can let it be easy? How can I overcome this, this difficulty? Those are some really good questions to ask yourself. Some of the ways that complexity can show up in life or some of the reasons that we complicate things can be. I mentioned perfectionism before. I’m an expert in this one, people. Perfectionism can cause you to procrastinate, because you start thinking about like, you know, I have to get this perfect. I have to have this perfect. So I can’t start until it’s perfect. So that makes things incredibly difficult. And that’s really related to, you know, the reason that happens is people have. Fear. Of failing or being judged of looking stupid or being criticized. So we sit and spin our wheels in this indecision. For fear that we’re going to do the wrong thing. That makes things incredibly complicated. Fear of failure. That’s, that’s one thing that’s like attached to perfectionism a lot of the time, but, fear of failure can make things extremely complicated. I always say to my clients or people that I’m, I’m talking to that are interested in becoming a client. That you know, I always ask people, what is your feeling on failure or what is your view on failure? And it always tells me a lot because if you want to get somewhere in life, failure always has to be on the table. It always has to be an option for you. And as I’m saying that I’m thinking back to Apollo 13 and failure is not an option. Okay, so that’s a little bit different. Failures. I mean, when human lives are at stake, it’s we really don’t want to fail. Right. So, I mean, take this with a little bit of a grain of salt, but. Failure’s not an option for me, there are a lot of things that I’m not going to try. And if I don’t try them. I might not find the solution. So I guess even in the case of Apollo 13, Failure kind of has to be an option, even in that case, even though it, you don’t want to feel when human lives are at stake. By by having that mindset that. All the options are available to you. Is going to enable you to find the best one, because if you’re afraid. There are a lot of options. You’re not going to even touch because you’re afraid they won’t work, or you’re afraid you can’t do them. So you’re going to automatically eliminate like a huge portion of potential solutions. Right. And in our case, if you’re bringing it back down to non Apollo 13, In levels. You’re eliminating a lot of the simple solutions because of what I said before. Like a lot of times we are just kind of programmed to gravitate towards thinking that the more complex solutions are better. So if that’s the case and we’re not willing to fail. Then we’re automatically eliminating a ton of possible solutions. And a lot of them probably are the simplest ones. People pleasing is another one. and that’s really like the fear of being judged or not being good enough. we’re approval seeking. in these cases, we do too much. We can’t say no, we don’t have good boundaries. That makes things extremely complex as well. You know, if we just were able to sit down and tune into what we need. What we’re able to do. Why we’re saying yes to everything. Do we really need to say yes to everything? We would probably come up with. A lot more simplicity in our lives right there. If you’re a people pleaser, really think about that. Like, how can you bring more simplicity into your life? When it comes to doing, doing, doing, doing for others. And it’s fine to do things for others, but you just need to ask yourself why you’re doing it. If it’s because you need that validation to make you feel good enough. That’s where. There’s some work to be done. Along the lines of, people pleasing and perfectionism is approval seeking. Really that’s kind of what it comes down to. And again, it all goes back to fear of judgment criticism. You know, when we’re seeking approval, we are, we aren’t listening to ourselves. We’re listening for the approval from other people. and we’re in doing that, we’re trading away our authentic self because we’re trying to be someone. That will please someone else, you know, that’s most of the time, not who we really are and we’re giving up pleasing our own selves or, you know, being true to our own selves. And so when we do that, that’s definitely not in flow. That’s definitely not bringing the most simple solution to your life. Comparison is another one. you know, if you’re, if you’re comparing your chapter one to someone else’s chapter 20. And all of a sudden, you know, you’re not measuring up to their chapter 20, even though they’ve been at this, whatever it is for a long time, and you’re just starting. You’re complicating things a lot because you’re not focusing on what’s in front of you. And when you do that. You’re gonna miss the simple solution in front of you. You’re going to miss how to make something simple. Holding on to things too tightly as another one. and these are all you’re going to find that these are all super interrelated. But when we try to control everything. That is a complete recipe for complicated. Because. Most things are not ours to control. And sometimes letting go is the simplest solution. It might feel like the hardest solution, but it’s just because when you do that, you might have some emotions to manage and you don’t know how to manage those yet. And if you know how to manage those, it’s actually a pretty simple. Solution. when you learn that the hardest thing you’re ever going to have to do is manage difficult emotions. It really all comes down to that. And when you realize that it really does make things, it puts things into perspective and it really makes things feel a lot more doable. We all are sort of subscribed to the society of busy-ness, you know, busy is a badge of honor, working hard. I know people in my circles as an entrepreneur, we talk a lot about how can we make our work. Easier, you know, how can we fill our business with more ease? Because in our society, there’s a lot of belief system that says you must work. Hard. If you want to make money, you have to work so hard and you have to, you know, if it’s not hard, It’s not worth the money or I’m charging a certain amount of money for a client. And if I’m not working my ass off, then. It’s not worth that. So we’ve equated, like busting our asses to value. And it’s not the way it should be, that doesn’t make sense because we can still be super effective at what we do. And spend less time doing it because it’s an easier solution. It’s, there’s more flow in it. And I can deliver way more value to somebody when I’m in that place of flow and ease than I can. When I’m in the chicken with my head cut off chaotic, disordered, place. We just kinda need to learn how to take a pause. And let things happen. And, and let that be okay. And see the value in letting things happen and not. Micromanaging them to happen. When we complain about what we don’t have instead of practicing gratitude for what we do have. That’s another way that we complicate things. If you really stop and listen to what you’re complaining about or What you wish you had. If you really stop and think about that, but then contrast that with what do I have. Feel the difference in your energy when you, when you think about when you shift that. Viewpoint. If you find yourself in that mode of, well, I wish I had this and this is so hard and I can’t do this. Sedona make a list of that. All of those things, brain dump, what things feel so hard, what things don’t you have that you’re complaining about? And just feel that in your body, where does it show up? And then. Do the same thing by thinking about what do I have. Even right now just saying that and talking about this I can feel a shift in energy. So try that. It’s really pretty cool. When we’re stuck in only thinking from our own point of view, this is another thing that makes things really complicated. I have witnessed this in myself, is that. You know, w we all grow up with these belief systems that we’ve acquired as you know, from childhood, and we’ve grown up with them and we’ve accumulated more and more and more all along the way. And we have these. Ways that our point of view that we believe this is the way things are. and when we subscribe to that and we’re not willing to change it. you’re not able to see what’s in front of you. You’re not able to see the simple solutions because. You just are set in your ways. This is the way it is. I’ve seen this happen in myself. I’ve seen it happen in multiple clients. Is that when you open your mind that those belief systems, maybe aren’t true. That you’re just making them true. And you’re willing to entertain that you could actually create an entirely new one that serves you better. That is where you can start to bring flow and simplicity into your life. Right there too. but we just, we just get so stuck in it. You know, we have, There’s that’s a complicated, that’s a whole other episode in itself. But if you can just open your mind and even just start with thinking. There might be a different way. That I could think about this. That’s a good thing to start with. The another thing is that we stay stuck living in the past. We want things to be the way they were. If they, you know, if they change, we want them to be back the way they were, or we have this idea of how we, you know, how we think they should be. And I went through this when I got divorced. I’ve talked about this. the podcast episode that talks about there’s no such thing as normal. I had a really hard time with that because I was so stuck in living in this idea that I, and this kind of combines the, the point of view thing I just talked about and being stuck living in the past. you know, I had this idea of the way things were supposed to be the family I was supposed to have. And I just had a really hard time getting around that because I really felt. That, that was just the way, And I couldn’t really see another option that was, that was acceptable to me. And so when I started to shift my thinking around that, and that’s a work in progress, right. But when I started to shift my thinking around that and say, well, really. What is the way, the way is simplicity, ease, feeling happy. Like there are a million ways to make that happen. So you can start to look at it that way you can let those simple solutions, the simplicity, the ease come to you. I mentioned this briefly a little bit ago, but staying stuck in indulgent or indulging emotions is another one where we make things really hard on ourselves. And this happens a lot. This is really like when you’re in victim mode. a lot of people don’t realize when they’re in victim mode and basically what happens when you’re in that place is that. You really don’t want to get out of being stuck in your story. You’re indulging it. Your mentality is that it’s all happening to you. And you don’t have any agency to change things. That’s victim mentality. Everything’s happening to you. You don’t have the ability to do anything different. And that is not true. So if you’re feeling that I really encourage you to take a good look at that and look at what things you can do to change that. there is a simpler solution than being stuck in all of any indulging, all of those emotions that aren’t helpful. It’s fine to feel them. But see what happens sometimes is we. Get stuck in that story of I’m a victim. I need that validation the person who hurt me is bad and you know, all of those things, and that may be the case. The person that hurt you, maybe bad, but. If you stay stuck in that, how is that going to help you? That’s a very complicated way of living your life in a very unhappy way of living your life. Another one is that we just really don’t want to face the truth. So we avoid pieces of ourselves or we avoid situations that could lead to a simpler way. Victim mode is a perfect example of that is where we really don’t want to face the truth that we are in control of our own lives and our own destiny and our own happiness. We’re really in control of all of that. And so if we’re still not ready to be unstuck from our story or unhooked from our story. or we don’t know how to do that. It’s almost like this way of not facing the truth that I actually am capable of doing the work to get myself out of this. And this also comes down to you’ll get this when I talk in a minute about complexity bias, but our brain is really wired to. It’s like a fight or flight thing. It’s like when things are complex, it’s sometimes it almost lets us off the hook to have to understand something. So that’s where it kind of that’s how that kind of relates. Another thing too, and I would argue that this is probably the biggest one is that we don’t trust ourselves to know. How to find the ease in life. We don’t trust ourselves that the simple solution that’s in front of us. Is the right one. Was there overthinking. And I’m going to get to that in a minute. But trust trusting in yourself, believing in yourself, letting yourself be right, listening to your intuition. Those are all ways to find the flow and the ease in your life. So I want to talk about now, why do we do this? Actually, your brain is wired to want to find the more complex solution for a bunch of reasons. But one is just that our brain likes to be busy. It likes to be stimulated. And a lot of this has to do with what our ego wants. Right. So I talked about that before, for me being a perfectionist, you know, my ego wanted to feel smart. And so by me, Having this complex thing, like it made me look like I was super smart. Right. And our soul. Our soul just is, you know, our higher self, our highest self. It doesn’t need the busy-ness or we’re, you know, we just are, we don’t need to be busy. We don’t need to be stimulated. we just think we do. We think it gives us something that we need when we don’t really. So our brain, if you give our brain two different hypotheses, One simple and one complex. Our brain is more likely to subscribe to the more complex one. So, I’m gonna give you an example in college. This is a simple example, but, and if, if any of you are math people, physics, people, anything like that, engineering, And maybe just anything, even, maybe even maybe this, this can actually apply to anything, but in college, when I would study with friends or we do homework together, It would be working on a problem that, you know, we think we got the answer and it’d be like that. Can’t be it. That’s too. That’s too easy. That’s too simple. It has to be harder than that. We’re looking, we’re always looking for that harder solution. If it’s easy, it can’t be right. It can’t be that easy. So we’ve just, we’re just kind of conditioned that things are not supposed to be easy. Right. And actually. It’s not even necessarily that we’ve been conditioned to think things aren’t supposed to be easy. It’s just an inherent thing about our brain. And that brings me to talk about what’s called complexity bias. Our brain has several different cognitive biases that are there to make things easier for our brain. And I talk a lot at, on the show and in my work about how. Our brain just really likes to make whatever it can. Easier for us. It puts a lot of things on autopilot. I think we have like 60,000 thoughts a day. Most of those are autopilot and funny enough, 80% of those, or so are all negative thoughts. We have those negative thoughts all the time is because they’re just, our brain has made them easy. Our brain has put them all on autopilot and it doesn’t have to really think about how to have the thought. Her why to have the thought it just does. So complexity bias. Is really our tendency to look at something that, you know, might be easy to understand. And instead of seeing the simplicity of it, we just automatically view it as being complicated, having a lot of different parts, hard to understand. It’s an effort for the brain to make things easier for us, but it’s really a cognitive error and it, it just. Describes our tendency to prefer more complicated solutions. And explanations over the simple ones. So we’re really wired this way, which is kind of crazy. When you opt for really hard solutions or confusing, complicated, complex, solutions, you also kind of give yourself an out or like the ability to sidestep the need to really understand it. Here’s an example. I just finished reading Stephen Hawking’s book, a brief history of time. And as somebody who has a scientific background, I kind of follow it, but there’s a lot of stuff in that book. That’s really confusing. It’s about, quantum physics and, The space time continuum and. Warping space, time and string theory and all of these things that are. Super interesting to me, but are really. You know, at the end of the day, like really over my head, So it’s really easy for me to say, oh, most people could probably not even track with this book. So I’m okay. Just saying, yeah, I don’t really understand this, but it was cool to read it right. And put it aside and kind of move on. But if it was something that was really easy or should have been easy to me, I, you know, I might’ve started to be really hard on myself about not being able to get it. So it’s almost like a flight response. And, you know, when you think of fight or flight, it’s like, oh, this is too hard. I’m going to run away from it. So if you make something hard, you kind of give yourself an out, that’s what I’m trying to say. You can surrender. You know, Surrender your responsibility to understanding. There’s a lot of really interesting studies about complexity bias. So if that interests you go ahead and Google it. A lot of good stuff Okay. So we’re hardwired to, you know, for complexity bias to favor the complex, make the simple things complex. That’s one of the reasons why we do this. It’s just wired into us. so the other piece of that is, like I said earlier, our brain really does like to make things, or our brain does really like things to be stimulating and busy. so if something is. Easy. We tend to think of it as boring or doll. Or we also maybe don’t give it as much value of it’s, too easy. Like it might be, we might feel like it’s beneath us. maybe we want to think of ourselves or be thought of as intelligent. And we have a belief or a story that says if something is easy, we’re not really using our full brain power. and we’re not going to look smart, or If we present a simple solution. To someone will be judged as not being smart or intelligent. Another reason that we complicate things or, you know, our brain gravitates that way too, is that, we’ve also been conditioned that being busy is. Like a badge of honor. We’ve we’ve been conditioned that being busy as good and you know, hard work is good. And it’s also A matter of what our thinking is, what our default thinking is. Our default thinking might keep us stuck in victim mentality. you know, in indulging emotions and not learning how to process them and move through them. When we’re in that place of not. Taking the steps to process and move through them. We’re sitting with this complicated web of emotions that are hard to deal with. And so it makes it really easy to stay stuck in that because, oh, it’s too hard. I don’t know how to get through this. I don’t know what my next step is. And if we were able to just see that we actually have control over. Our emotions like. By controlling our thoughts. It becomes really simple. So then it’s not this tangled web of how do I get out of victim mode? It’s just, what am I feeling right now? And how can I shift my thinking to feel differently? It’s just this very simple solution and it’s one step at a time. So do you see the difference? But when we’re stuck in there of feeling like life is happening to us and we have no control over it, it does feel hard. also, I mentioned default thinking, maybe we also just can’t see that there’s another way of thinking about things we’ve been in this complex way of thinking for so long, and it’s just always the way we’ve done something. and this can apply to like very practical things in your life. Like, I had. A client who is her and her partner had like 10 different bank accounts. And it was the most complicated thing I’ve ever heard in my life. And I coached her on it a little bit. And I was like, well, why do you do that? They had a lot of arguments over like the flow of money and not knowing where money was going. And you can imagine with like 10 bank accounts. So we coached through that a little bit and it turned out that the reason that they did that it was this convoluted process, but it was just, it started for some reason. And then it just kind of got out of control and then they never, it was just the way they had always done things. So they never really considered doing it a different way. So there you go. Look at what areas of your life. You’re just doing, because you’ve always done them that way. Or maybe you’re doing them that way because your parents did them that way. you know, you can change them. and the same thing happens when we hold onto things too tightly. Our brain just can’t imagine that life could be better if we let go of the complexity or the feelings of things being complex or hard. So. What do you need to do to stop over-complicating your life? I think it’s really easy. Honestly. I’m going to give you more than one idea, but I think the, I think the biggest thing is to just be quiet, just listen. Listen to your inner knowing. you have this higher self inside of you. That is. Is not bound by ego. It just is. It’s wise. It knows what you need. It knows the simple answers. And if you just get quiet and listen for it. You’ll hear it. And I think the second piece of that is learning how to trust that learning how to trust that you are enough. And you don’t need complicated that all you need is ease and flow in your life. And that’s why we’re here is to live life. That’s happy And peaceful. I think it really is that simple. But, Some other things that. I think are important as well. Are. You know, just starting to become aware of where you think things feel hard in your life. Like I said at the beginning of the show, where do things feel hard and thinking of that as when you start to notice that thinking about it, not as them being hard, but as it, as it being a challenge for you to learn how to make things easier. I think that’s really important. And it starts with that awareness. It starts with getting quiet and then it starts with listening for that awareness, like just having that awareness that this is coming up right. I also mentioned gratitude earlier I think that gratitude is, it just is a shift. It’s a shift of energy. And when you sit in that energy of gratitude, it, it feels easier. Like I mentioned earlier, that exercise when you’re feeling like victimy, you know, when you’re feeling like I don’t have this and I wish I had that, and this is so hard and that’s really, that really sucks. Sit with that. How does that feel? In your body. Do you feel tense? Do you feel like anxious? Do you feel worried where, you know what go through, do a body scan? Like where does that show up physically in your body? Journal about it. And then just really. Like I said, sit with it. For a minute and then go to the other side of it. What do you have right in front of you right now? That you’re grateful for. And sit with that. How does that feel in your body? And notice that shift, they feel so different and you can literally make that shift within, you know, instantaneous, when you just shift where your energy is flowing. Practice it it’s really cool. It’s really cool. Watch judgment. Judgment is one thing that can complicate things so much because you’re not focused on what’s in front of you. You’re focused everywhere else. And when you do that, you’re not going to see where you can find the ease in your life. So watch the judgment. And when you drop into that place of awareness and quiet, you can start to, to notice that. And along those lines will awareness, you know, stay present. see things just simply for what they are or what they aren’t that goes in with the awareness to being able to really just, not attach a story to something, just be able to see something as it is just like you are a human being. You, you just are. you exist, you are enough just because you exist. If you think about something outside of you. Just for what it is, don’t make up a story about it. Cause that’s where you get into trouble. Get to know your fears. That’s a big one too, because fear makes us do things. That don’t make sense. A lot of the time. So get to know your fears, what are you truly afraid of? And by dropping into these places of, you know, where do I feel like things are hard and suck. Versus what, what really does flow for me and what am I grateful for? You’re going to start to be able to see, see those things. And then finally, and I think this is also one of the, really, this is like the biggest one aside from just listening is. When you listen. Believe yourself, let yourself be right. Believe in yourself that you really do have all of the answers inside of you. You really do. It doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes or you won’t be a lettuce stray sometimes, but usually that’s when you’re not listening to yourself, that’s when you’re letting something from the outside, come in, you know, but learn to trust yourself, let the beliefs you have when you’re, you’re coming to this place of just being in simplicity. Let those be right. Let your intuition be right. Practice that. so back to like learning, to make things easier. When they feel hard, like I said, find that the awareness that they feel hard. And make a decision that you’re going to accept the challenge to learn how to simplify them. Take that as a sign that okay, I’m saying this is hard a lot. That’s just like what I did. I noticed that I’m like, I’m saying this is so hard a lot and it doesn’t feel so good. So what can I do to make it not feel so hard? You know, it might still be a challenging thing, but how can you bring more ease and flow into it and to do that, you are really going to oftentimes need to step outside your comfort zone. in one way or another, you’re going to have to practice a new way of thinking or a new way of being. I did an episode a couple weeks ago about how you can’t ever get different results without changing something without changing the way you think or your way of being. You will never get new results, different results. If you don’t change those things. So that requires getting out of your comfort zone because you’re going to have to do something new and our brain doesn’t really like to do new things all the time. So you’re going to need courage to be able to do this, but the more you practice courage, the more confidence you’re going to find, listening to your intuition and trusting yourself. So play with that practice. It don’t be afraid to mess up. Failures gotta be an option for you to get this stuff right. So, what does simplifying. True or trusting and believing in yourself, listening to your intuition. What does that make available for you? Why is it. Why should you even try? Who cares? Right. Well, You’re going to be able to live a more intentional life. You’re going to be able to slow down. You’re going to be able to make the space to listen. You know, we don’t often leave space in between. Doing and, you know, thinking, thinking, and doing, or, you know, we don’t leave that space to let things come. So we let our brain get in the way and our brain makes things hard. It’s gonna enable you to be aware of what’s going on around you and inside of you. Which is in turn, going to help you create that space to just listen. It’s going to bring you opportunities to practice listening and trusting. You know, by, by having this in your awareness, you’re going to start practicing it just naturally. The more it’s in your awareness. The more you’re going to get curious about it, the more you’re going to practice it and practice makes progress. Right. you’re going to gain confidence in your intuition, your inner knowing that you actually do have your back, that you actually do know what’s best for you because you’re going to have all these new opportunities to practice. You’re going to feel more grounded because you’re going to trust that you’ve got this, you’ve got your back and you know how you know that you have everything inside of you to find simplicity and ease in your life. and so that leads me to our next one, which is just, you’re going to have more flow, ease. Peace joy in your life, less stress and worry. One of the biggest things you’re going to gain. And this is such a beautiful one is that you’re going to gain self-confidence. So you’re going to have that confidence in your intuition and your inner knowing, but you’re also just going to have self confidence that you’ve. You’ve got this. Like, even if you fail, you’ve got this right. You’ve always got your own back. You can always handle those difficult emotions that come up and you’ve always got the ability to find that peace and ease and flow in your life. That’s pretty cool. I love this. This is a long episode, so hopefully you’re enjoying it. I’m just letting it ride. I don’t care. It’s good stuff. So, what are some of the ways you can simplify things in your own life? These are very practical things. And this is the last thing I’m going to give you before I end the show today. But one thing is to take really, just take good care of yourself. Drink lots of water, eat healthy, practice, intuitive eating, you know, listen to your intuition on when you need something. and listen to what your body needs, you know, are you eating 10 sugar cookies because your body’s asking for it or is it because you’re stressed and you’re like, you know, you need something to take the edge off. You start to listen to those things, get enough sleep, be kind to yourself, always say nice things to yourself. Talk to yourself. Like you talk to someone you love. I always say that, but do that. Move your body, practice, Setting boundaries. You don’t say yes to everything be okay. Saying no. And if you say yes, love your reasons for it. I always say that always love your reasons. look at what things you can repeat. I’m a huge systems and processes nerd. This comes from my time, working at Boeing. You know, like with food, with dinners, what recipes can you repeat? How can you put your shopping list on, you know, more of an autopilot mode or, can you order things online or how can you make your meal planning more automated or simplified? How can you simplify getting ready in the morning, organizing your clothes or putting them out the night before having a quote-unquote capsule wardrobe so you can mix and match really easily. if you’re somebody who tends to not like what you see when you look in the mirror. practice some self-love don’t beat yourself up. When you look in the mirror, choose your clothes ahead of time. No changing outfits. Oh my God. You guys. When I was in high school, my mom is listening to this. I’m sure. And she can attest that I would change my clothes like 10 times and I would be in this complete tizzy over not looking good enough. And it was, oh, it was a terrible feeling. But you know, if you’re somebody who does that layer close up the night before, make a commitment to yourself that you’re going to just put that outfit on and you’re not, there’s no beating yourself up. When you look in the mirror, no changing outfits. You’re going to say something nice to yourself or don’t look in the mirror at all. Simplify that part of your morning. take time out of your day to get quiet and tune in. To listen to that inner voice, that inner wisdom or intuition, what is it saying to what’s coming to you? You know, what’s flowing to you. Hit the pause button slow down when you need to make decisions. So you’re making intentional decisions quickly by listening to your intuition. It does that doesn’t mean you’re making rash decisions, but you’re not leaving these open cycles at second guessing yourself. and then a lot of times just asking yourself, if you tend to be busy or, you know, there’s a lot going on or something feels hard, ask yourself, why am I doing this? And. Love your reasons for it. Or ask yourself, is there an easier way for me to do this? Always entertain others points of view. Your way is not always the best way. It might be super complicated. There’s likely a much simpler way. And you may just need to shift your thinking or even just shift your energy. And then another thing that I think is really, great to do is, this is kind of a practical thing, but, do a pain point audit, what that means is. Take a really honest look at the places in your life where you feel like you have stickiness. It’s like a pain point. You, you know, things don’t feel easy, feel things, feel complicated and hard. And then just ask yourself, how can I simplify these things? What changes are you going to need to make to simplify them? And are you willing to make those. And then. What might you need to let go of in order to simplify, like, are you needing to let go of a belief system or a story you have about yourself or the world? And are you willing to let go of those things? And if not, It always comes back to, do you love your reasons? What are your reasons for not being willing to let go? Do you love the reasons. So, and those are things that I can help you with. this stuff is really hard to do on your own. I. I’m a living breathing example of that. I just didn’t get it until I had a coach. And so if you want to talk about it, I would love for you to schedule a clarity session with me and we can talk all about it. You can tell me kind of where you’re struggling or your sticky points are. and then I’ll tell you what I think, you know, why I think those things aren’t working, what you’re doing, isn’t working, and then I’ll give you my ideas on how. you can change that. and then we can talk about. What it would look like. To work together. if it’s a good fit. And that whole session is free. And even if it’s not a good fit, you’ll take away some really valuable insight. really want to get on that call if you’re at all interested in any of this stuff. If any of this stuff resonated with you because you’ll get a lot out of it, regardless of whether or not. Coaching is a good fit for you. All right. That was a lot. That was a mouthful. I hope it was helpful. And as I, as I’m wrapping up this episode, I’m wondering, did I make this episode simple enough? Like, did I just overcomplicate it and talk about way too much stuff? So, you can practice your intuition and actually give me feedback on that. If you think I made it too complicated, please let me know that. And then I know that I need to work on making things a little simpler for myself and all of you. So you guys have a great rest of your week and a great weekend, and I will see you next week.
