Things Are Allowed to be Easy
If making life harder for yourself was a sport, I (Holly) would stand a chance of being at least semi-professional.
Both nature and nurture have provided me with a collection of skills and traits that would certainly catapult me into the big leagues of getting in my own way. These include:
Eldest daughter (with an oldest of four multiplier)
Academic overachiever who went through a gifted and talented programme
Generalised Anxiety Disorder
Type A
People pleaser
Perfectionist
What a collection! Maybe you relate to some (or all) of these. In which case, welcome (and big hugs to you).
But friends, here is the thing… if you also make life harder for yourself, I don’t want us to be on the same semi-pro struggle team. In fact, I would love for us all to make life easier for ourselves, because god knows, there are A LOT of things beyond our control that are probably making everything even harder.
So here are three things I’ve done recently that have brought some ease to my brain, and how I think they could help you too...
1. Fitness Coaching
I am one session away from having been to the gym three times, every single week, for the last ten weeks. Please allow me this small flex, because I’m pretty sure that’s more than I’d previously ever been to the gym in my entire 34 years of life.
And it’s because I invested in a coaching programme. Part of the consistency is obviously down to having spent money on it, and having the accountability of a coach (because wow, do I still love the external validation of being told well done), but I’ve kept showing up because it’s felt easy:
I let someone else make all of my decisions: This was very hard initially if you’re someone who is always very in control, but it’s actually relaxing when you stop fighting it
I didn’t try to over-optimise it: My coach recommended a gym. I nearly wasted a lot of energy trying out other gyms near my house, but the one he suggested was good enough, so I stuck with it
My coach literally told me to let things feel easy the first week
Yes, some things about it I've found very hard (gyms are intimidating, and eating enough protein is a pain in the arse), but I’ve stuck to it way more consistently than in all my years of running.
2. The Best 90 Days Ever
If one person has had the single biggest impact on my year, it’s Hannah Isted, who runs The Best 90 Days Ever, a marketing membership where she sets you a 10-minute marketing task every day.
The subject line of this email was actually something she said in a voice note a few months ago.
The membership is great, and it has taught me a lot of things about letting stuff be easy:
Systems don’t have to be complicated to be useful and satisfying: I was so tempted to make a whizzy Notion page to track completing the tasks, but I literally wrote the numbers 1-90 in the back of a notebook and just crossed them off
Done is better than perfect
Stuff doesn’t always have to take hours to be worthwhile: Things can be quick and easy, and still have lots of value and impact
Yes, another investment, but I’m increasingly of the opinion that if you can spend a little bit of money to have an expert tell you what to do, that is genuinely more valuable than trying to muscle through a situation on your own, because you think you have to solve it yourself.
This last thing is completely free, though…
3. Tell People About the Things You Are Finding Hard
I am terrible at telling people when I’m struggling. And I will often only reveal I’m having a bad time if I feel like I’ve already solved. So, in this instance, don’t be like me! Share that you are finding something hard.
Oftentimes, just verbalising the thing takes away some of the difficulty. Having to articulate the situation to someone else removes some of the swirly heaviness and might even make you realise, to quote my Gen-Z sister, “It’s not that deep”.
And don’t expect them to solve the problem; having an external perspective on a problem is often super helpful. I’ve had four different conversations this week where people (including me) were getting in their own way, and talking about it really eased some of the burden.
My main takeaways from these three examples are:
Reduce unnecessary decisions
Stop overcomplicating things in the search for perfection (because that does not exist)
Let other people help you
Let things be easy!!!
So, make this post your permission slip to loosen the grip, lower the shoulders, unclench the jaw, and let things be easy. It’s going to feel super weird if you’re used to letting things feel hard, but I think you can do it 💪
Holly & Sophie
(The Good Eggs) x