As a life coach and as a student of life, I have learned that life is very simple. Situations in life are so simple, but we tend to complicate things. As a life coach, my job is simply to bring clarity and simplify things for people.

Mr. Smit Shah, President of Mir India and Vice President of Mir Mosaic USA, a great leader and a wonderful individual, suggested I should write a book on this topic. I saw that there is already a book with the same title. So, here I am writing a small article on it.

But first, let us understand the fundamentals of human behavior. It is very obvious that most of you would think that the more we have of something, the better it is. More money, more cars, more assets, more and more. But does more suffice us?

What we need in reality is completeness, fullness. When we are hungry, we need food, more food, but as we get full, we don’t need food anymore.

Everything in the right quantity is perfect. Right quantity of diet, right quantity of exercise, right quantity of quality time.

Wu-Wei

To get a specific job done, we need some people or some ingredients. We don’t need more, nor do we need less; we need the exact proportion of things.

A very counter-intuitive title, but to the point: Less Is More. But in classical arts, this is the foundation. Be it martial arts, classical dancing arts, classical music, less is more.

Normal human behavior is that people try to put in more effort when things don’t work out. In some cases, it works, like if you want to push a heavy object, you may need to put in more effort. But to work out a falling relationship, you don’t need to put more effort. If you are not able to sell your products, you don’t need to put in more effort.

What we need to do is reduce what we are already doing. When we minimize our efforts, our mind gets free, creative, and bold. We can then focus on what exactly is missing and find a way out.

Pareto Principle

Have you heard about the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule?

It says that in almost everything, the major portion of the result is caused by only a minor fraction of the efforts. In business, it says a small number of products or services are behind a major portion of the revenue. A small season is the reason behind a major portion of the revenue. In health, it says that only a small amount of exercise is enough to stay in optimum health condition.

Even in classical martial arts, we train to reduce our efforts in every move we make. Mind you, I am talking about reducing the effort and not the impact; this is what this title suggests: less is more. Less effort delivers more impact.

A rookie martial artist will put in a lot of effort in whatever he does. He will try to put in a lot of effort to create more power in his strikes. But as the martial artist matures, he realizes that he needs to reduce his efforts and concentrate only on certain movements that generate maximum impact.

Health & Fitness

When the smart wrist watch was launched in India, everybody was getting trendy with it, especially the 10,000 steps. Many of my friends would like to track their daily footsteps.

Yes, in the beginning of any fitness journey, you need what we call discipline, and that discipline requires constant monitoring. But with time, you need to come in synchronicity with your body and mind.  

Your intuition and instincts know way more than your intellect. Your body has way more wisdom than your fitness social media influencer or your smart watch.

So, when your smartwatch says you need to do 3000 steps more, but your body says that for today 7000 are enough, we tend to listen to our intellect and ignore the wisdom of the body.

Now there are two choices: you will complete the steps and you will feel good instantly, but then it creates a memory that when you are on a fitness journey, you tend to not listen to your body. Or the other option: if you choose not to complete the steps, you will feel guilty about not completing them; it again creates a memory of failing, so your subconscious wouldn’t want to relive it.

It is the reason why we cannot continue something for too long, because we overdid it. This is where this line makes sense: less is more.

Instead, go with the flow: today 10,000 steps, tomorrow 1000, what is the problem with that? The key thing is to enjoy the walk, enjoy the workout, not take stress about it.

What is the biggest reason for all the issues we are facing? Overthinking, overeating, overdrinking, overworking, overspeaking- everything we tend to do more than necessary. We don’t need more effort; what we need is less effort, more impact.

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Happiness & Relationship

Even in relationships, we try to expect more and more from our near and dear ones. Expectation creates resistance, and gratitude creates expansion.

The more we expect in a relationship, the less we get. The less we expect, the more we get.

Instead of just expecting, when we acknowledge the other person’s efforts, when we show gratitude for what they have done for us, we are empowering the other person, and we are healing our relationship.

When I do life coaching sessions with couples, to solve a very small issue a large amount of time gets utilized, simply because people try to give too much to their relationship. What we need is less.

Less talking, less complaining, fewer distractions, less of all the things that we are doing. As we reduce this, we start to listen more, we start to notice more, we start to think more about what we can do for our partner.

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The Conclusion

Try not to focus on what more you can do. But focus on what you can reduce. In today’s world, we need to do less more than we need to do more.