News from Creative Coaching Group

The ice cream truck. Summer memories of when life was simple.

Simply playing outside from daybreak to dusk, with brief moments to come reluctantly indoors to eat meals. Playing "Kick the Can", "Capture the Flag", "Red Rover, Red Rover". Simple games. Simple fun.

The woman in line in front of me at my local coffee joint ordered an "organic, 1/2 caff, quarter sweet, 5 shot, extra hot soy mocha" and I wondered to myself, "Gosh...if she starts each day so darn complicated, what is the rest of her life like?"

We know that we can be more efficient by keeping things simple. We know that simplicity brings clarity. The Heath Brothers in their best-selling book Made to Stick , list "simplicity" as the first principle if trying to make an idea memorable or "sticky". By drilling down to the essential core of our ideas, the message is crystal clear.

The KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid!) has been bandied around meetings for as long as I can remember. We know that "keeping it simple" is a more effective way to operate, to manage, to live.

Re-learning how to relax, enjoy and appreciate the simple things in life is a lifelong quest for most of us. We know that simplicity is a concept that will give our lives joy, colour and connection.

My one question to help you shift your world - "How can you simplify today?"

Three Ways to Simplify Instantly

Simplify your Activities: Take the day to be the day. (Stop prepping for something else.) My coach Les' Grandma, had good advice: "Only plan one event per day." One thing to do. Do it.

Instead of feeling driven to power walk for 30 minutes while listening to a business podcast, try taking a "beauty walk" instead; a walk with no purpose other than to walk, to notice, to listen, to smell, to see. When you walk by the playground, take the time to hop on a swing, or whoosh down the slide...pick a flower...unplug...eat an ice cream cone.

Simplify your Business: What is your business' Main Thing? Is there anywhere you have forgotten the purpose of your action? Have you gotten off track by adding too many layers? Write down one sentence that simply describes why your business is in existence. Read it. Keeping that core purpose in mind, what one thing will you focus on and complete today?

Simplify your Thoughts: Calla Lily is the main character in Rebecca Well's (Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood) book, The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder, and she is a beautician who is known for her healing hands. When Calla Lily asks her client to breathe as she leans back in the salon chair, her client says "I'm not good at just breathing - my mind is too busy."

Calla Lily instructs her to consider as her "TO DO LIST" for that afternoon: "(1) Breathe - in (2) Breathe Out (3) Breathe In (4) Breathe Out. Count up to a hundred that way and see what happens."

"Simply the thing that I am shall make me live" - William Shakespeare