Just because something is simple to understand, doesn’t mean it’s easy to do.

When we hear explanations that are straight-forward and uncomplicated, often we move quickly to assume that doing them will be easy. When we find that it’s not, we become angry – even frustrated. This is compounded by the fact that we then feel worse for failing at something that initially looked effortless.

Let’s use weight loss as an example.

Think about losing weight. Losing weight can be boiled down the following formula: Expend more calories than you consume.

Simple.

Yet apparently anything but easy. Weight Watchers 2009 revenues alone were $1.5 billion with the entire US weight-loss market exceeding $55 billion.

While expending more calories than you consume (losing weight) might be simple to describe and understand, doing it successfully and safely is not easy.

When we assume we know the amount of effort required to reach a goal or objective based upon our ease of understanding, we can open ourselves up for disappointment. Ease of achievement is not necessarily correlated with ease of understanding. Simple is more of a cognitive response, still requiring a physical and emotional doing and result. Just because cognitively we can understand it, doesn’t mean physically make it a cake walk.

We often revert to breaking things down into smaller pieces, thinking that by making them more understandable, they will become easier to execute. Don’t be fooled and frustrated by this.

When you’re pursuing goals:

Understand that even when things sound simple i.e. picking up the phone and dialing, it is not necessarily so.

Don’t diminish your assumption of the effort needed to achieve the task just because it can be articulated briefly and with few words.

Don’t get discouraged by what sounds simple turning out to be difficult.

Instead,

Realize that the main thing is getting the task done.

See that because it’s not easy, most people will not carry through and complete the task properly.

Understand that by you doing so, you deepen conviction for what you’re doing and increase your chances to grow your business and deepen and develop as a person.