—video transcript—
I think we’ve all seen this, and we’ve probably all done it to some degree: making life complicated instead of making life interesting.

Part of my core message to you is that life is gonna bring us curveballs. The unexpected should be expected. We will face challenges, hard times, confusing circumstances, difficult people, so many things that are out of our control. However, we can arrive at these unexpected hard or sad or challenging times in a position of strength if we have made other areas of our lives that we can control uncomplicated, uncluttered, so to speak. That’s why I focus on digital decluttering. It makes your everyday life so much more simple. So, if work gets crazy or you are planning a trip, or your kids have a lot going on, at least you are not burdened by thousands of unopened emails in your inbox or disorganized digital files that overwhelm your brain in the context of your day. So if you’re facing a big thing, it’s not a horrible deal in terms of what you’re facing in your digital life.

Or even your physical space! It makes life so much more simple when you come home to a space that is in order, things are where where they need to be so that you can get to them easily. In the midst of complications, at least that part of your life is in order.

Or your physical self. How great is it in the midst of the unexpected to at least know your clothes fit? And you can feel confident about how you present yourself to the world…and that that is not an added issue that burdens your brain. At least you have the lift of knowing you have your food intake in check, and you’re not tempted to run to comfort food, even in the course of an unusually busy day or a hard time.

This whole idea that you can make life interesting or make it complicated came as a realization to me many years ago, a couple of decades ago. I knew a gal. I worked with her, and I observed in her something that was a little bit of something I observed in my myself—but it was on steroids with this person: the propensity to add complication to life instead of adding interest and intrigue to life. There were dramas that she invited with relationships and with work circumstances and even in friendships that were unnecessarily complicated and just gooey with drama. And I had that phrase come to mind. She doesn’t make life interesting. She makes it complicated.
Wisdom is often learning from other people’s mistakes instead of having to go through them yourself. So again, I know andI fully acknowledge this is a propensity for all the humans to sometimes default to unnecessary drama, because the more interesting or challenging thing is going to take actually more of us than the familiar drama that we’ve invited before. But I did want to learn to not go that direction unnecessarily whenever possible. So I’ve latched onto that for years.

And now that I’m here sharing this unique content with you about ways to declutter your life, make room for the good stuff, and go for what really matters, this thought is truly at the forefront of all that I do and all that I share.

So what’s the difference between complicated and interesting. Let me make the point that interesting does not mean easy,-breezy, fun, and just simply fascinating. Interesting can be extremely challenging. It can be the invitation to go for a new goal, to seek out a new venture, to find new friends, to journey to a new place, to drive a different way home, etc.
That interest that we can bring to our lives is not necessarily the total elimination of anything that’s difficult. As a matter of fact, when you give up the complications that are avoidable, you make room in your life, in your energy, in your mental energy to then pursue things that will challenge you in healthy ways.

So—the complication is the unnecessary, and it can be very habitual. Frankly. It can be almost addicting, that familiarity to go to what’s dramatic. A good example is a frustration over a coworker, let’s say, and you and friends gravitate to that topic and just fixate on it and don’t ever deal with the root cause of why a particular person may be challenging to work with. And so, you just enjoy the drama related to that person rather than ever breaking free and saying, “how can I be part of the equation that makes this better?,” that kind of thing. So those are the complications. Or you get into a relationship with someone that you know straight out of the gate is not going to be the right person for you, but you add that complication because that person is there and it’s simple… And let’s just do that in the moment, rather than tapping into something deeper and waiting for something that’s right and challenging ourselves to rise to the occasion to want more for ourselves. So that’s a choice of going for complication over making life interesting.

Again, a huge part of my message is that once you get rid of perhaps one thing that has been complicating your life, you’ll realize you’ve been eliminated a thousand things that are complicating your life and preventing you from pursuing that which is truly interesting, and that will help you grow and propel you forward. For me, the first step in bringing my life from a lot of unnecessary complication was my digital decluttering.

I’ve shared some about this, but I’ll chase that rabbit very quickly here. I had gotten to a place in my life where my digital files, photos, my social media use—so many aspects of our lives that are driven by digital, social, and mobile technology—for me, had become completely overwhelming. I had allowed that to happen over the course of time. Frankly, it was something I never even had an awareness of that was actively happening in the moment. I would pay attention to the fact that my inboxes were ridiculously full and I wasn’t managing my time well, or that I was losing valuable minutes searching through thousands upon thousands of phone photos to find one that I needed to attach to an email to send to a client. In the moment I paid attention, but I didn’t have a broader awareness of the fact that that was an issue that was actually affecting every part of my daily life because it was so pervasive.

But once I conquered that? Oh my goodness, within days I was alleviated of all that complication. And I felt so much freer, and I had more time just to relax. And that’s what I did for a little span of time there as I just allowed myself to enjoy the freedom in the extra time I had afforded myself by conquering my digital clutter. Over time—within a year, I was a student of neuroscience. I was taking in great information, reading books (way more than I used to!), listening to quality podcasts, not true crime (no offense, true grind podcasters), but I needed something that fed my brain in a different, in more lasting, meaningful way. I was more hungry for that kind of deeper information. I conquered the up and down pounds that had plagued me since high school or junior high because I applied the mental construct that I had used for my digital decluttering to weight loss. I started this venture where I was articulating all that I had learned and packaged into something that you could replicate.

And here I am today. It was amazing how one thing opened up so many things. And I eventually realized I was a living example of that whole idea of “don’t make life complicated, make it interesting.”

Get rid of the complications that you are able to get rid of. Life’s going to throw you the surprises no matter what, but you can come prepared to those ready and strong simply by eliminating the complications that you have under your control.

Thanks for hanging in and listening to this. I just wanted to illuminate that point that we don’t need the extra drama. We don’t need to invite that. Even if it feels a little familiar and maybe a little easier to default to, let’s make life interesting. I want to live in a world or I’m surrounded by people who are choosing interesting over complicated.

Thank you. Thank you for being here, guys.
oxo,

Irene