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Why Do We Overcomplicate Things?

May 31, 2021

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What Are You Overcomplicating?

 

What are you overcomplicating in your life or business right now?

 

I just did a reel over on ‘the gram’ about how all too often we overcomplicate getting what we want.

 

We look at something simple and think ‘that’ll never work’ or ‘it can’t be that simple’.  It’s as if, the more simple something is, the less we trust it.

 

We often know the answers.  Let’s take weight loss, we know I love a weight loss analogy because it’s so easy to relate to.

 

We know ‘eat less, move more’ is always a winner.  But we might seek a more complicated solution like restricting certain foods.  Or complex meal prep like macros or doing something that requires research, like cutting out wheat or dairy.  

 

I used to get lost in those labels.  

 

It’s often the same with mindset work.  It’s as if you’ve been told what works a hundred times but there’s something you don’t trust because it seems too simple.

 

Same with business.  I think there is SO much that's overcomplicated in business.  It wasn’t until I cut out the noise of all the millions of strategies that, according to the messaging, if I ‘didn’t have in my business then I really didn’t have a business’ that things took off.  

 

It made everything harder.  It’s when you strip things back.  Simplify and take action from that place that you’ll start to see the results.

 

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

 

And it’s SO true.  I see it all the time with clients.  One of my favourite things to do is help them see the simple.  Often met with a ‘why didn’t I think of that’ or ‘Oh my God that’s so easy’ and a frustrated little laugh.

 

I used to do it myself too, because I'm a human!

 

I had a year where my ‘word’ of the year was simplicity.  I LOVED that year because I had it next to me all the time.  I had it flash up on my phone.  I really intentionally lived by it for that year so it’s now just a go to way that I think.

 

If ever I start going down a thought loop it’s straight away ‘where am I over complicating this’.

 

Very helpful, I thoroughly recommend it!

 

So why do we keep going to the overly complicated ways of getting what we want?

 

What is that?!

 

Well, it’s actually a ‘thing’.  

 

In psychology it’s known as ‘complexity bias’.

 

Complexity bias is where we can look at something fairly simple and think there’s more to it than it is.  We can confuse ourselves over it. We LOVE doing this when we’re already overwhelmed too...just for kicks!

 

We don’t look for the obvious answer that might be staring us in the face.

 

The area I do this with is tech.  All my emotional regulation tools and techniques come out to play when I'm around tech.

 

Sometimes it can feel like the most basic of things is impossible to follow. 

 

If we go back to the weight analogy again, you might have gained weight and you start researching thyroid function or hormone imbalance.  It might be that.

 

But it might also be the entire box of chocolates that you ate or the fact you haven’t exercised in months.

 

I’m talking to myself here too guys ha!

 

This is definitely something advertisers take advantage of too.  After 15 years in advertising and doing my dissertation on the way marketers make women feel terrified of ageing it’s rife.

 

It could be confusing language that doesn’t really mean anything.  I remember back to my dissertation and it was a beauty brand marketing their brand as better because it contained ‘aqua spheres’.  Think about that for a second. I mean, does an aqua sphere sound like it could be a drop of water to you? 

 

The same goes for marketing of courses or programmes.  People will make you feel like if you don’t have THEIR specific thing that you’re missing something.  

 

They’re intentionally letting you over complicate it so you feel like you NEED it!

 

We unconsciously make ‘more complicated’ mean ‘better’.

 

We just see things as more complicated than they actually are.

 

This is another sneaky brain shortcut.

 

It means you won’t do the thing that’s going to require a burst of energy, and it wants to conserve energy.

 

I see it often when making personal development changes.  People don’t trust the easy options.  Which is interesting because they often over complicate by looking for instant gratification.

 

It really can be way more simple than you think to make HUGE changes in your life, which is what my first cohort of SOS! Ladies have been learning with me over the last 5 weeks.  

 

The tools and techniques that work are SUPER simple. Using your breath, meditation, journaling.

 

You just need a little more information and context for your brain and your nervous system to trust it!

 

It’s so easy not to trust the simple option.  It’s often not until you have the complicated or more complex knowledge as to why something works that you have the motivation to stick with it and trust the process.

 

Ask yourself questions like, ‘how could I simplify this?’ or ‘where am I over complicating this’.  ‘What is making me not trust the simplicity’.

 

Seek someone else’s opinion who isn’t as close to it as you.  Often other people can see the things we don’t yet because they have a different way of viewing the world, or different experiences and different beliefs coded into their system.

 

Seek the evidence of other people who have done the thing you want to do.

 

LOOK for the easy way.

 

The more you look for it the easier it will be to find.  Funny how that works! 

 

You’ll also be giving your brain the instructions that this thing is important to you so your reticular activating system will be on the hunt to deliver the people and opportunities that you might ordinarily miss.

 

But when you have this complexity bias running, AND you’re delivered marketing by people who KNOW this all mashed together it’s easy to see how you can get discombobulated and confused over your next step!

 

So you just don’t take any and things don’t change.

 

So, It’s entirely possible that having the business, and the life that you want is entirely less complicated and far more in reach for you than you’re making it!

 

I see SO many people wanting to start businesses and not doing it because it becomes this big complicated mess in their heads because there’s so much NOISE out there, so it’s easier to decide you’re just not cut out for it. 

 

But, in my opinion, that couldn’t be further from the truth!

 

You’ll hopefully remember my friend Lisa Johnson. She's been on a few episodes of the podcast before so go check those out if you haven’t because she thinks very the same way I do.

 

So together we make quite the combination!

 

It’s time we stop over complicating things, particularly business.  We can take away so many of the things we complicate about business.  Like growing an audience, creating content, funnels, email marketing, how to actually make money.  

 

But also stop believing things like having a business means having to live hand to mouth or feast or famine in terms of clients and revenue.  

 

This uncertainty that can come with being your own boss...which your brain does NOT like. 

 

There are SO many ways it doesn’t have to be like that.

 

Having done what feels like a bazillion different courses before, feeling like there was always a piece of the puzzle that I was missing to actually make it work for me in the way I wanted to.  Based around what I wanted for my life.

 

I fell for it, and wish I knew then what I know now.  It absolutely, categorically doesn’t have to be that way.

 

Lisa’s not here for it either.  Simplify, simplify, simplify….step by step.

 

She simplifies everything, and fits the pieces of the puzzle together of having the business that you want, all in one place.  She’s known as the queen of passive income and recurring revenue.  So think, courses, memberships, subscription boxes.  BUT, think about what having that as a business model gives you!

 

Freedom.  More certainty.  Not trading your time for money, Knowing the ballpark amount that’s going to be coming into your account every month.  I mean...how many of you would start a business now knowing that’s possible?  It absolutely is with a recurring revenue model or at least one stream of passive or semi passive income being generated.

 

So I’m SO excited to be partnering with her again this year on her One To Many course which is coming up SOON!

 

But first things first she’s running her FREE challenge from the 14th June, I talked about it last year and she's only going to be doing it once this year.  

 

It’s called the race to recurring revenue, and over the space of a week you’re going to know with certainty if a recurring revenue model is for you.

 

It’s totally free and it’s NOT one of those challenges where you won’t get value from the challenge to be able to go off and start things for yourself.  You absolutely will.  But if you decide you want to go all in and join one to many after having a week immersed in the training then you’ll also get the opportunity to work with yours truly too.

 

More details on that in due course my friend!

 

The link to sign up to the race to recurring revenue challenge is in my bio on instagram, it’s in the shownotes and you can type out http://bit.ly/franandlisa and sign up from there and if you’re on my email list i’ll be talking about it plenty so you can’t miss it.

 

If you’ve ever wanted to start a business and this is speaking to you, just do the challenge.  You have NOTHING to lose and everything to gain by exploring it.  It can work for pretty much anyone, in any niche and it works for people with established businesses and if you don’t have your idea yet.

 

So let’s stop overcomplicating having the life that we really want. We only get one of them, right?!  Why not TRY!

   

Fx