My daughter and I were having a fun conversation exploring ways to approach some challenges. She threw out the question, “What would it look like if that challenge were easy?” I can’t stop thinking about that question. Since then, each time I come across a challenge or something I’ve been putting off, I ask myself, “What would this look like if it were easy?”

By definition it’s a challenge – so how could it ever be easy? Feels like one of those Zen koans that makes no sense at first glance. It’s a puzzle alright. Normally I approach challenges from the other direction – assuming it’s hard and emphasizing all the reasons it’s hard. What a great game to turn it all on its head and envision it as easy. But how?

My first challenge that I tried to flip into being easy had to do with a mundane task of sorting through some financial documents and calling my insurance company to make adjustments and solve a few problems on a number of fronts. What makes this task hard is that I simply dread it.

So my first step was to come at the task with a different vision – a vision of it being easy – of seeing it all come together.

EasyNext, I thought of all the ways I could enhance my experience of completing the task by enhancing my environment. I grabbed a cup of coffee, turned some music on, appreciated the view, and then set to work.

I’d love to report that the task came together efficiently and matched my vision. That’s not how it happened. What actually happened was I spent hours on the phone talking with one consultant after another. It wasn’t turning out to be easy at all. In fact, this was exactly why I dreaded tasks like this. It seems to take way too long. As I sat there feeling the frustration rising within, I kept asking myself, “What would it look like if this were easy?” Of course my first vision of this was that everything would go my way – and that would make it easy. My vision also included personnel from the insurance company who were efficient and knowledgeable and working on fast computers.

Since that wasn’t my reality I needed to come up with another vision for making this easy. Then it hit me. If I could drop my expectations about the amount of time this task should take, then the task would suddenly be easy.

It was the expectation that the task should happen quickly that made the task hard. Once I accepted it wouldn’t be quick – then the task was a breeze. I plugged my headphones in and slipped my phone into my pocket and went about doing other mindless tasks like cleaning and folding laundry while I was on hold. Suddenly it felt easy. Mission accomplished without much effort – just time and patience. The trick to making this challenge easy was recognizing what made it hard – my expectations around time. Once I let that go, I was able to structure my environment to make the task easy.

By Sue Hardman-Conklin

Questions to Ponder:

  1. What challenge or challenges are you working with?
  2. Can you identify the parts of the challenge that make it hard?
  3. What role do your expectations of how it “should be” play in making the challenge difficult?
  4. What would it look like if you were able to let go of your expectations of how it should be and instead work within the limits of how it is?
  5. What would it look like if it were easy?