It’s so easy . . .

One of my brilliant clients dropped a gorgeous piece of advice on me recently.

As we talked through something she’s trying to sort out, I asked her to close her eyes and speak what advice was coming up for her. It’s this:

Go to the open window, not the closed door.

Holy Hallelujah! I love that so much. Why make it hard by continuing to bang your head against the closed door? Instead, look for the path that’s already open and available to you.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard something like this. Jen Sincero shares a story in her must-read You Are a Badass about being in her apartment, enjoying a sunny day, when suddenly a bird flies in her open door. Over the next several minutes she tries to shepherd the bird back out the door, but it keeps flinging itself at a closed window. Yes, we’re now talking about a closed window and an open door, complete opposite of the story above. Stay with me, it’s the exact same thing. Finally, this poor little bird decides to exit the way it came in and flies out the door (with a terrifying story to tell its friends). Jen’s take-away is it’s so easy once you figure out it isn’t hard.

Whoa.

We humans can make things difficult for ourselves. In some ways, it’s a brilliant stalling method that staves off potential failure. As long as we’re struggling to make something happen, we haven’t failed yet. Spoiler alert: we haven’t succeeded either.

So how are you making something far more tricky than it needs to be? What if you took some time to figure out the easy and available solution and just take that path? It doesn’t have to be that hard.