Success Can Be Simple, But Maybe Not Easy…

You know, most people don’t give it a lot of thought, but there is a difference between something being simple and something being easy. Similarly, there is a difference between something being complicated and something being hard. If you look deeper at those differences, you can learn a lot about why some people succeed while others fail.

For the sake of this post, here is how I am defining complexity and difficulty:

• Complexity – How confusing is something to understand? How many parts or steps are there? A simple process is easy to understand and has few steps. A complicated process is difficult to understand and/or has many steps.
• Difficulty – How much work or effort is involved. In short, how much of a pain in the ass will it be? An easy process is not a pain. You can perform it effortlessly. A hard process is a struggle and a giant pain to implement.

You can break most tasks into the four combinations of these traits:

If you analyze these combinations, you can get a good look at where you are and why you may not be where you would like. As we go through the categories below I will use two examples, one personal (getting in shape) and one professional (getting business):

1. The Dream (simple and easy) – Ah, simple and easy. If only life would be so accomodating. I call this category “The Dream” for two reasons: 1) This is where you should be striving to end up and 2) for most people this remains a dream that keeps them paralyzed in inaction.

   First, “simple and easy” is a great place to be. If you want to get in shape and you love playing tennis, then find people to play with or sign up for a league. It’simple (you know how to play and not confused by it) and easy (since you love it, it doesn’t feel like work). In business, align your marketing and sales activities with what you love. What will bring you business that is easy for you? If you can answer that question, you are pretty set.

   Second, and sadly, many people refuse to take action until they find a path that is simple and easy. If you have been a couch potato for 20 years and can’t think of anything that would be simple and easy for you, you may feel incredibly unmotivated to do any kind of exercise. Professionally, maybe the things you love will not actually bring you business. If you hold on to the dream of waiting until you find a simple and easy activity, your business may stay just that: a dream.

   Look for a simple and easy path, but if one is not readily apparent than be willing to follow another one. Your goal will then become to eventually make whatever path you take, “simple and easy.”

2. The Illusion (complicated and easy) – This seems to be where most people like to live. Obviously, everyone’s first choice will be to find “simple and easy” options. After that though, people seem to prefer “complicated and easy” over “simple and hard.”

   Complicated and easy is appealing because we all like “easy.” Something may be complicated, but if we can find a system, a book, an infoproduct, or anything that lays out for us, step by step, how to do something, we feel good. We feel good because with a step by step system, things feel “easy.”

   Am I bashing systems and books? No. In fact, I am in the midst of working on one of each right now. The problem is that most “compliacted and easy” solutions do not force a person to change their ingrained bahavior. Without that change, it makes it very hard to transition from “complicated and easy” to “simple and easy.” As you long as you follow the complicated plan, you’re fine. But it’s very easy to fall off.

   There are many, many diets and exercise programs that are complicated and easy. Eat this with that! Hide healthy foods in your meals this way! Create a multi-tiered process of eating spread out over 12 weeks! To be honest, to me these are both complicated and hard. But to many people, the ability to turn of their brains and just eat what a book tells them to feels easy.

   The same thing applies to business. I know; I have spent a long time researching, reading, and (sadly) buying books and programs on systems that are “guaranteed to get you business!” They all have many steps that seemingly lay out a clear plan, and I always get excited when I read them. But for me they fall short. Why? Because when you have a process with many steps, each step provides its own opportunity to fail.

   If this is true, why are there so many systems out there? For one, people like them, and will continue buying them looking for the one that will work. And, some systems work for some people some of the time. Usually, it’s either when a person finds a system that to them appears to be simple and easy (based on their background and expertise) or when it’s a short term project where no internal change needs to happen.

   You may be saying, “but Avish, in both of the above it seemed simple too.” Sure, in that, “doing what the book says” is simple. But remember, complexity can come in the form of volume too. The more rules, the more steps, the more individual action items, the more complex. For fitness, the real simplicity is obvious: “Eat better. Eat less. Exercise more.” In business, Larry Winget summed it up best: “Business is simple. Be absolutely amazing at what you do, and ask a lot of people to buy.”

3. The Fool (or the Genius) (complicated and hard) – “Complicated and hard” is an interesting one. If you follow a path that’s complicated and hard you are either a fool or a genius.

   In most cases, you would be foolish. The chances for failure are high in complex and hard systems. The more complicated something is, the more opportunities there are to stumble. The harder it is, the more likely you are to get frustrated and unmotivated, and ultimately give up.

   In some cases, however, “complicated and hard” is the path to genius. Building and launching a space shuttle is both. And if that is what you want to do, I am not going to tell you that you are foolish. The key is that the only path to that success is complicated and hard. In which case, go for it. But in those instances you must have a passion for your pursuit to make it.

   If you are on a complicated and hard path, make sure that it is a path you truly want to and need to be on. Otherwise you may just be making your life a whole lot more difficult than it needs to be.

4. The Real Path (simple and hard)

This is where the real magic lies. Most of our quests for “complicated and easy” solutions stem from our desire to avoid “simple and hard” activities.

Think of a goal you’d like to achieve. Chances are that you can immediately think of a way of achieveing that goal that is simple and hard. I laid them out above for both fitness and business. Fitness: “Eat better. Eat less. Exercise more.” Business: “Business is simple. Be absolutely amazing at what you do, and ask a lot of people to buy.”

Is there more to it? Sure, but not much. Do you need a complicated system to tell you what constitutes good food vs. bad food? No. But is it always easy to eat well. No, not if you have a lifetime of eating poorly. Do you know what it will take to be amazing at what you do? Can you think of some ways to immediately start asking people to buy from you? Yes. Will either of those be easy? Probably not, otherwise you’d already be doing them.

In addition, in business, difficulty is barrier to entry. Your willingness to do what’s hard becaomes a competitive advantage simply because most others don’t want to do those things either!

This is not to say that you should spend the rest of your life doing hard things over and over. Life is too short for that kind of struggle. The nice thing is that as we consistently do hard things, we learn and grow as people. And through familiarty and repetition, hard things become easy, and before you know it you have moved into the “simple and easy” category – the Dream.

My primary strategy for this blog is pretty simple: post as close to everyday, Monday through Friday, as possible. Simple, but not always easy. It’s hard to write when I get busy, or am feeling blocked, or am travelling. And let me tell you, it was a lot harder when I started. But over time, it has gotten easier. I wouldn’t say it’s easy yet, but it’s getting there.

For me, improv comedy, speaking, and humor are simple and easy. That’s because I’ve distilled down what’s important to a few critical principles and practiced them enough to a point where they are now automatic.

This is the way habits are formed. If you are willing to push through the hard phase, you will eventually get to a point where things are simple and easy for you too.

Application

Because I know people like step by step processes, here’s one that I hope is simple and easy for you (yeah, I know there are 12 steps, but that’s only because I really broke it up here…):

1. Think of a goal you are trying to achieve
2. Are you currently taking action to pursue it? If not, is that because you are waiting around for a simple and easy answer? Or have you been shopping around for a good complicated and easy one?
3. If you are on a path towards your goal, consider which category that path falls into. Are you comfortable with that? If you following a complicated path, is it because you are desperately avoiding a hard one?
4. Wherever you are in your progress, ask yourself, “is there a simple and easy way to achieve this?”
5. If, “yes,” then you are done. Go do that!
6. If not, ask yourself, “is there a simple and hard way” to accomplish this?
7. If “no,” think harder.
8. If “yes,” ask, “am I willing to persevere through this until it becomes easy?”
9. If “yes,” great! Go do that!
10. If “no,” keep looking for solutions (and consider how important the goal is to you)
11. If you still feel compelled to follow a complicated course of action, than ask, “is this a one time short term process where it doesn’t matter if I develop a long term habit?” Or, “does this complicated long term action seemed to be aligned with what I consider ‘simple and easy’?” Or, “for this goal, am I ok knowing that I am avoiding the hard path that will lead to long term success?” (Note: this last one is not meant to be snarky or condescending. For some goals, you just don’t care enough. That’s fine, as long as you know)
12. If you answered yes to any of those, great! you’re done. If not, keep looking.

Not everything will be so simple as to be boiled down to one or two steps. But we would all do well to listen to Albert Einsten (he was a pretty smart dude): “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Some things that we must do and want to be simple will be complicated. Some things we wish were easy will be hard. But the first step in any process is always awareness. If you do nothing else but spend some time paying attention to which category your decisions and actions fall, you will be well ahead of the curve. And that, in and of itself, may be a simple and hard thing to do…but well worth it!

About

By Avish Parashar. As the world's only Motivational Improviser, Avish uses techniques from the world of improv comedy to engage, entertain, and educate audiences on ideas around change, creativity, and motivation. Connect with Avish on Google+

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