episode 246: how to simplify any task that feels hard to do

Oct 6

Ever wonder why meal prep is just so damn hard?

Turns out it’s because meal prep isn’t just ONE thing to do. It’s actually ten little things to do. Which is the case for SO MANY tasks that feel hard and overwhelming.

In this episode, I share a surprising story (involving my hair of all things 🙃) that reveals why meal prep—and honestly, anything that feels “too hard”—isn’t as impossible as it seems.

You’ll learn:

Why “meal prep” isn’t one task, but a whole chain of tasks
How breaking things into smaller steps shows you where the real struggle is
The one simple shift that makes hard habits easier to stick with

If meal prep (or anything else in life) feels like a wall you keep slamming into—this episode is going to show you how to finally break it down and get it DONE.

246
[00:00:00] Hey friends, so real talk. This is my second take on recording this podcast. I actually recorded the entire episode, and as I was recording it, I'm like, I don't, I don't like this. I don't like how I'm talking about this. I'm going off on too many tangents, and so I finished it. And I went to take Joey for a walk and I was really thinking about it.
I'm like, I just don't have a good feeling about this episode. I'm gonna go back and rerecord it. I could, I've done that a handful of times, barely at all, but to walk away from recording an episode and just knowing that it's not right. So I'm back here. I'm doing it again. I'm gonna keep it shorter. I'm gonna keep it tighter.
I made more detailed notes. I was like, I kind of decided on the topic last minute. I think it's actually a really great topic, but I don't think I was as prepared as I could have been, so taking a do over. Alright, so let's jump in here. I'm going to tell a very quick story and then it's going to lead into what I'm going to talk about, which is kind of big picture.
How to make something that feels really [00:01:00] hard, easier. But I'm gonna talk about a very specific example of that. Something that people come to me a lot with, which I could just tell you now, which is around like meal prepping and planning. Alright, that's kinda the thing I'm gonna talk about. But here's how this, here's how this came about.
So. Last week, I had just washed my hair. I washed my hair once a week and Danny randomly asked me, I was in the bathroom. He goes, do you ever just like get your hair wet but not wash it? And I looked at him like he had 10 heads. I was like, why the fuck would I do that? Like why would I waste my time and get it wet?
I have to do so much work. To get it wet and then once it's wet to deal with it, of course I'm gonna put shampoo in it and actually get it clean and get something out of it. Just getting it wet doesn't give me anything. And it really got me thinking, because I've talked about this a lot on Instagram, but never here I don't think, I hate washing my hair.
It is one of my most disliked, uh, least look forward to, uh, respond. I'm gonna say, I'm not even gonna say adult tasks 'cause you have to wash your hair like your entire life. Just human tasks of, of existing in a human body. I have [00:02:00] really thick hair. It's now long and it is time consuming and there's just it.
I just don't like it. And so, but when he asked me this, I really started thinking about, well, why, why do I dislike it so much? And I kind of had this like, aha moment. I'm like. God, it just, it's not just the washing part. When you say you have to wash your hair, you're literally, you think about like being in the shower and the wet and the suds and all that, but there's so many steps to it, right?
I have to get my hair wet. We all have to get our hair wet. It actually takes a lot to get my hair thoroughly wet, to make sure the water gets all the way to my scalp. In all the places my hair's very densely packed. It takes time and if I don't do that, then it like screws up the whole thing. Then I gotta get the shampoo and it's the same thing.
Getting the shampoo worked all the way into my scalp, around my whole head, takes time, and it gets like annoying. It's like work. And then I gotta do the conditioner, and then I gotta rinse it out. And this whole time hair's like coming out, it's like sticking to my body and it's on the shower floor and I'm just like pulling it out and it's just like, ugh.[00:03:00]
It's just yucky sidebar. Isn't it so weird how when hair's in your head. It's like fine. But the minute it comes out as like a single strand or there's like hairs on the floor, even though knowing it's your own, you're totally grossed out by it. Or is that just me? Like, I like hate dealing with like single threads of hair that are on my body or like sitting on the floor and I clean it up all the time, but I'm just like, Ew.
It's like hair. It's a hair. I'm like, it was just in my head. It was normal there and now suddenly it's off of my body and it's. Yucky thing. I don't know if that's just me. Anyway, so I go through this process, which takes time and takes a lot of work. I put my hair up in the towel and then I have to leave it there, right?
So now there's, I'm adding more time to this process. My hair's just sitting up here, but it's like sucking up time. Then I have to brush it, and now that it's long brushing, it takes time to really get through all the layers again. I have really thick hair, so stuff just takes more time, just like is what it is.
Then I gotta put product in it, and more hair comes out. So there's hair all over the floor. There's hair on my hands. I'm like cleaning up hair. As I'm doing this, I'm [00:04:00] cleaning up the hair outta the shower, and then it's wet. Then it has to dry. Forget even blow drying it. I'm not even gonna go down that road.
That adds a whole other layer, and then it has to dry, and I have to try and make it look decent. My hair actually looks terrible when it's freshly clean. It looks the best when it's like dirty to very dirty. So I think about all, and I'm like, wow, this makes a lot of sense. It's not just the washing of the hair, it's all these steps.
It's dealing with the hair, it's cleaning up the hair, it's brushing the hair. It's like dealing just, it's just annoying. And it got me thinking about meal prep. I already talked about this. It got me thinking about meal prep because that is a thing that's probably one of the most common. Challenges that I hear from people, whether it's a client or it's someone that messages me, or if it's a friend or family member, it's about meal prepping or having food around in the house readily available to eat.
Right? What, whatever level of prep that ends up meaning for you. Um, it's something that so many of us struggle with. We don't like it. It's hard to find the time. So many reasons. [00:05:00] And I kind of started equating this to like washing my hair. I'm like, well, why? What is it about meal prep that feels so hard?
Let's break down the steps of this. Just like I broke down. I'm like, oh, this is why I really hate washing my hair. 'cause it's so many steps and there's X amount of work at each step. How can I, how can we break down the steps of meal prep? Right. There's figuring out what to make, figuring out when you're going to make it.
There's researching recipes if you're going to do that. There's making a list to go to the store. There's actually going to the store. There's bringing the grocery groceries home. There's unloading them, there's putting them away. There is prepping. There is the actual cooking part. There is the cleanup part, right?
There's so many steps. I just listed off probably at least 10 steps right there. So we talk about, oh, I've got a meal prep, but it's like, I've actually gotta do all of that. I gotta break this down into all these different steps. And so, which what I think is [00:06:00] kind of a, a key step here that we overlook is.
Instead of just trying to like force our way through it or, or say, fuck it, I'm not, I'm, I'm just not someone who meal preps. It's, let's break down all the different steps of this and let me identify which of these steps feels the hardest. Where do I get tripped up? And you will probably get tripped up in more than one place, but you're probably not gonna get tripped up in every place.
There are definitely parts of that process that you dislike or that feel like bigger obstacles than others and figuring out what that is. Is going to change everything, right? Like if I connect this back to the hair washing thing, it's not like a total parallel. Um, I could easily go and get my hair blown out, right?
I choose not to do that for a couple of different reasons, but that would be a way to make the whole thing easier. I could get the same outcome, which is clean, dry hair, but I could pay someone to do it. I have to use my time differently. Part of the reason I only wash my hair once a week. Is [00:07:00] because of how much I dislike doing it.
And so I'm fortunate that I can get away with that, that my hair actually looks fine if I only wash it once a week. Actually, if you're watching this on YouTube, today is one week. I actually am gonna go an extra day and it is pulled up. And I did use dry shampoo, but like you would never know that I haven't washed my hair in a week today.
Um, so it's like I make the whole process easier by doing it less often. Right. I'm not avoiding doing it because it's not like my hair is so disgusting, it's not like, you know what I mean? So I, I have, I do have that flexibility, but I'm able to manage the discomfort of that by doing that thing less often.
So it's like with meal prep, what are the different steps and how can you simplify? How can you make one or two of them a little bit easier on yourself? Right. That's really what I wanted to talk about today. Right. So if you look at. If, if figuring out what to make is what's tripping you up because you feel like you have to research recipes, let's stop researching recipes and let's come up with just a meal [00:08:00] template, right?
I'm gonna have a protein, I'm gonna have a veg, I'm gonna have a carb, and I can mix and match those, right? I'm gonna grill chicken thighs and some flank steak. I'm gonna roast a whole bunch of peppers and onions and broccoli in the oven, and I'm gonna make rice and I'm gonna roast potatoes, right? No recipes.
The recipe is olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, on all of those things, pretty much. And then I'm gonna mix and match, no recipes needed. Um, if you're someone who likes recipes, cool. Then maybe instead of waiting to find the recipes, you're gonna make until the, the moment that you want a meal prep, you sit down once a month and look up five new recipes.
And then those are the recipes you make for the next 4, 6, 8, 10 weeks, but you have them already all figured out, right? If, um, if the cleanup is the part that you hate the most, how can you get some support with that? Or what are their disposable products that you can use to make things easier to use? Less items?
Um. It's not like I'm not gonna sit here and come up with all these solutions kind of on the spot, but the [00:09:00] idea is to break down. And if, and if meal prep is not a thing for you, that's fine. What is the thing that's feeling really hard for you? And instead of just looking at it as this big kind of lump sum thing, break that thing down into its component parts, into all the steps that have to happen to make that big thing happen.
And then figure out what are my one to three biggest obstacles? What do I struggle with the most and what can I do to make. One to three of those things a little bit easier. More convenient, less time consuming, less. Basically, you can look at your resources of time, energy, and attention. How can I reduce the time, energy, and attention needed to do those things right?
And that might require a trade off of time somewhere else. It might require a trade off of money somewhere else. It might require a trade off of energy from somewhere else because we have to source these things from other places. Um, but really identifying how can I make the parts of this process?
Easier on myself. I talked about this a little bit in last week's episode, um, which was [00:10:00] about going to the gym, right? And figuring out what are your biggest obstacles with going to the gym and how can you make them easier? How can you do less? And for a lot of people, it's time and energy. Um, I'm too tired or I don't have enough time, right?
So how can we do less, do an easier, shorter, less physically demanding workout? Um. And that will address both of those things. So that's really the crux of what I wanted to talk about. I've already shaved like six or seven minutes off the original episode, so. Win-win for all of us, um, is really looking at the thing that's challenging, breaking it down it into all of its component steps.
Like sit down with a piece of paper and write this out. Don't do this in your head. Write it out. Get really clear so you can show yourself and be like, oh wow, this is why this feels so hard. Because it's not just meal prepping, it's all this other shit that has to happen both before and after. And then figure out what are the one to three biggest challenges and how can I make those easier for myself?
What can I do? Which again is going to be looking at the time, energy, and attention that you are putting into those. [00:11:00] How can I make some shifts? To reallocate and probably use less time, energy, and attention. Right? And there's many different ways to do that. It's like ultimately what part of what we're doing in coaching.
Um, but this is something that you can potentially work through on your own is an and is really identifying kind of these steps and walking through this. So that's what I got. This episode, this version is so much better, guys. Yes. Um, I'll be back next week.