The Simple vs. Easy Road:
Which one will get you there?
“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creative.”
-Charles Mingus
As I was giving advice to a friend about getting motivated with his writing, I thought to myself why am I not taking my own advice?
In all endeavors discipline and motivation are key. I know, mind-blowing right? Nothing works without those 2. Simple as that. Let’s not confuse simple with easy though. If this is self-explanatory, I beg your pardon.
Simple refers to a lack of complication, right? The plan is easy enough to understand. The steps needed to make that plan of action produce results are pretty straight forward. Easy, however, is referring to the degree of difficulty I’m going to have to accomplish those steps. Getting out of debt, for example, is simple. Put a budget together, figure out where the money is going and start putting it in the right places to pay what you owe.
Doing that though is a much harder task. You must be willing to stop spending on those things you want. It’s hard to break old habits. As you can see, the concept is simple, the application, not so much.
Once our mind comes to grips with this, we can put our shoes on and start walking down the path. I see a great many articles that read “3 EASY steps for this!” or “5 SIMPLE ways to…”
Having taken blogging courses/classes or what have you, I understand the purpose of using catchwords to get you to read those articles. It just seems I get my hopes up thinking someone has an “easy” way to do something for me only to realize that wasn’t really what was meant. And that’s probably good. I’m not sure I want so many things to be “easy”. Vishal Kataria has a rather good article on why easy isn’t always the best.
If we can start with motivation, then move into discipline (this comes in handy when the sexiness of the new endeavor starts to wane) simplicity will keep us on track.
Imagine you get an exciting new business idea. It’s rumbled around in your head for a few weeks and now you’re ready to take the next step. You get that familiar feeling though. You’ve done this before. As a matter of fact, there are about 6 things you’ve been meaning to get started. You’ve thought about the people you need to contact, items you’ll need, how much it will cost, and so on.
This was a reality for me. I would get various ideas and start jumping in all directions. It was complicated. The path to where I wanted to go wasn’t clear. Things needed to get simplified.
You can be a busy person, always hustling about but not really get anything done. Things need to get whittled down and the goal needs a simple path.
What is all of this trying to say then? Of all the things you want to accomplish, pick a few that are the most important. Which ones will directly build the step for the next one?
A brief example of a list of typical things an entrepreneur may need to get done:
1. Get out of debt
2. File for those Permits you need
3. Upgrade parts for the company vehicle
4. Look at new office space
5. Get that other business idea going.
This list would have me running all over the place trying to figure things out if they weren’t in order. Getting out of debt (though slow at times) may need to move to #2. Save for the permits to continue to earn money (legally). Then get out of the debt, following that, the extra money is used to upgrade parts or equipment.
Now, we can look at office spaces to expand the current business. Following all this, because we are on a good path, we can start looking at the other business ideas.
The goal here is to make your path clear. Don’t complicate things by adding a bunch of stuff that doesn’t help the immediate goal we’re chasing. It’s not going to be easy, but we can make it simple.
