photo credit: VinothChandar
The amount of choice we have is overwhelming.
When it’s time to make a decision about which step to take next, we are often paralyzed with indecision. Not wanting to make the wrong choice, but not knowing which one is right, we stand at the fork in the road and don’t choose either direction.
There is an incredibly simple way to pick a direction and start walking.
Pick the easiest next step you can think of.
That’s right. The easiest. Not the hardest or the most sophisticated-seeming, but the easiest choice you can make that will take you forward.
Often when we start something and the result we want is the product of a long and complicated process, we kind of freak out. Because at that moment it’s too overwhelming to think about all the things we will need to do to get there. Probably, we don’t even know all the things we need to do to get there.
At this point we might just stop, not ever getting starting, because it just seems like too much. But we are missing something obvious when we do this.
If you always take the easiest next step, the one that seems too obvious to mean anything, eventually those steps add up, and you develop sophistication along the way, and you are able to take more and more complicated steps because you’ve been building upon what you know along the way.
Those easy steps add up, and you have something bigger than you ever thought you would have.
And remember, easy is relative. What was easy to you at the beginning is much less sophisticated than what you consider easy now.
Take the path of ease.
Great post! It was very inspiring!! 🙂
Hi Dani – Hope all is well 🙂
Isn’t the easiest step usually the safest one? I have a a good life, but I am being led in another direction. I’m terrified to take a step in that direction because it could hurt so many people. The easy and smartest step is to stay on my current path – which is not the one that my gut is pulling me toward. What am I missing here? Is there anyway to determine if the gut feeling is truly the best path or just the path that you wish for – not all wishes are realistic or come true. I’m very torn and confused.
Hi Kat – The “easiest” next step is the one that is right in front of you, staring you in the face, waiting for you to choose it. You don’t have to go looking for it or try to seek it out – it’s right there. It could be that the “easiest” step is actually scary or will be challenging for you, but the point is that it is the one that is easiest to see. 🙂
As far as gut feelings go, they usually come along with a sense of peace, a sense of setting something right, even if they lead to uncomfortable circumstances.