IF IT WERE SIMPLE, YOU’D ACT
Shed Your Complexity Costume
3-Minute Read
Conventional wisdom says building a business is complicated. What if ‘complicated’ is just the story that lets you stay stuck?
According to Foundology’s Founder Resilience report, 93% of founders show signs of mental health strain. But the major source of that overwhelm isn’t inherently the work; it’s the extra weight we keep piling on. We make it complicated.
Complexity can become a costume. It looks like leadership, while covertly hiding avoidance. This issue is about shedding that costume for simplicity. The kind of simplicity that takes courage, removes excuses, and forces integrity.
If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or scattered, this is your invitation to level up by letting go.
Let’s dive in.
shedding the complexity costume
Uncovering Complexity
Business naturally skews complex. Decisions, systems, people, bottlenecks. If you stop designing simplicity, you drift into complication the way a room drifts into clutter. You look busy and call it leadership. You’re not leading; you’re following your reactive survival brain.
Here’s how it shows up:
Business: “We’re refining strategy” = 12 priorities, no decision.
Relationship: “It’s just a busy season” = push the hard conversation out another week.
Health: “I’m optimizing” = complex protocols, new gadgets, zero consistency.
But founders don’t just “accidentally” end up there. Two hidden forces keep the chaos going.
1) Complexity feels normal.
Your survival patterns adapt to whatever you repeatedly live in. If your baseline has been pressure, urgency, and constant juggling, simplicity can feel suspicious. Too quiet. Too exposed. Like you’re missing something.
So you unconsciously recreate noise to get back to familiar. You add another meeting. Start another initiative. Keep 15 tabs open because one tab seems “lazy.”
2) Complexity lets you off the hook.
It frees you from being responsible for decisions, actions, and results.
In business, marriage, health, money, if the next step is simple, then it’s on you to do it. No scapegoat. No fog. No “it’s complicated” to hide behind.
Complexity makes a convenient villain. It gives you a story that sounds reasonable while your results stall.
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Designing Simplicity
Simplicity is not a tactic. It’s a new normal you practice into your body and calendar. The following questions will help you identify the patterns you’ll need to shift to let go of complexity and intentionally design simplicity instead.
Use these to expose complexity’s pull:
What feels familiar about the chaos I’m living in?
What do I get to avoid when things are complicated?
What do I have to face when things are simple?
Who am I being that keeps complexity in place?
What do I get to keep believing about myself if this stays complicated?
Then flip into simplicity on purpose:
If this were simple, what would I do next?
What must I remove to make this simple?
What decision am I delaying by calling this ‘complex’?
Who do I need to be that would simplify everything?
What would change in my day to day if I embodied simplicity?
Simplicity is courageous because it removes your excuses and leaves only your choices. That’s also why it scales. When you simplify, you move with integrity. Decisions speed up. Systems get cleaner. Your team can actually follow you. Execution compounds.
If you’re subscribed to The Grip email, check your inbox for the full PDF download of The Simplicity Discipline Inventory we sent you. It will help you identify the most strategic area of your life to simplify first. If you’re not yet subscribed and want to get tools like this in the future, sign up today.
For more ways to simplify your life, read: The Acceleration Paradox and The Speed of Less.
“Complexity makes a convenient villain.”
Complexity protects an outdated identity. Simplicity frees you from it. Simplicity is a discipline of being. It’s who you are when there’s nowhere to hide.
This week, pick one thing you’re calling “complicated.” How must you see it so that it’s simple? What action becomes available to you then? Delete one thing. Decide one thing. Scale back one system.
When it’s simple, you act. So, be that it’s simple, and move.
Keep creating.
key takeaways
Complexity is often avoidance in disguise. It looks like leadership, but it can protect you from clean responsibility.
Your survival brain normalizes chaos. If pressure is your baseline, simplicity can feel suspicious until you retrain it.
Simplicity scales execution. Fewer priorities, cleaner decisions, and systems your team can actually follow.
WORK 1:1 WITH BECKY
As a self-mastery coach, I help mission-driven founders accelerate desired results without sacrificing what matters. If that sounds like good news, REACH OUT to experience how 1:1 coaching can empower you to be the masterful leader your mission requires.
May you prosper in every way!
Becky & TPL Team
52 Maxims of Conscious Choosing To Create the Deeply Satisfying Life You Desire.