What if making progress isn't about doing more, but removing the one thing that's slowing everything else down?

Our instinct may be to add something: more effort, another strategy, more information, another book or podcast, more preparation.

But in Essentialism, Greg McKeown offers another possibility: What could you remove?

In Chapter 16, “Subtract: Bring Forth More by Removing Obstacles,” McKeown uses the story of a hiking group to illustrate the power of identifying a system's biggest constraint. One boy, Herbie, is moving more slowly than everyone else. Making the faster hikers move faster won't get the group to its destination any sooner. But when Herbie's load is lightened, the entire group can move faster.

It's a simple idea. Applying it to a human life gets more complicated.

In this episode of The Practice Ground, Ken and Kari explore what it might look like to identify the “slowest hiker” in our own lives—the obstacle consuming disproportionate time, energy, or effort, or keeping us from making progress on something that matters.

For Kari, that question became part of an ongoing experiment with her running habit. What if the biggest obstacle wasn't fitness, motivation, or knowing what to do—but the amount of mental chatter and resistance surrounding the behavior? What might happen if, instead of adding another strategy, she worked on reducing that?

Ken brings another question to the idea: What if the obstacle we can see isn't the one actually holding us back?

Humans are messier than production lines or hiking groups. We may think the problem is lack of time, information, preparation, or someone else's behavior when something less visible—perfectionism, self-doubt, lack of clarity, or another mindset obstacle—is helping keep us stuck. And because we're inside the system we're trying to understand, sometimes another perspective can help us see what we can't see ourselves.

What you'll hear inside the episode:

• why trying harder at everything may not help if one major constraint is still holding the whole system back
• how the “slowest hiker” story offers a different question when something isn't working: What could I remove instead of add?
• how Kari experimented with reducing the mental chatter and resistance surrounding running rather than adding more motivation or strategies
• why ideas that look simple on paper can become much messier when the “system” we're trying to understand is ourselves
• Ken's hypothesis that some of our biggest obstacles may have a mindset component—and why perfectionism can look deceptively like productive preparation
• why the problem we first identify may not be the problem we actually need to solve
• why getting clear about the desired outcome comes before deciding which obstacle to remove
• how lack of clarity itself can become a constraint—and what Kari's evolving business focus taught her about concentrating energy in one direction
• why giving ourselves some grace while experimenting can help us stay with the process long enough to learn whether we've identified the right obstacle
• when a mentor, coach, or other outside perspective might help us see the “slowest hiker” we're too close to recognize ourselves

One question sits underneath the entire conversation:

What problem am I actually trying to solve—and what is the biggest thing making it harder than it needs to be?

The answer may not be immediately obvious. We may discover that our first hypothesis was wrong. But rather than automatically adding more effort, information, or strategies, McKeown's slowest-hiker principle gives us another place to look.

What is the biggest obstacle you could remove that might make it easier to move toward what matters to you?

Cited in this episode:

Book | Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

Book | Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most by Greg McKeown

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Ken Li is a confidence coach. Connect with Ken on LinkedIn, where he regularly shares mindset tools, resources, and strategies to help professionals who second-guess themselves feel as confident inside as they look.

Kari Watterson is a mindset and habits coach. Connect with Kari on Instagram (@theadhdhabittrainer). where she shares her ongoing series, The Habit Training Diaries, or visit her website at KariWatterson.com.

What if self-doubt isn't always something we need to overcome?

Impostor syndrome is usually framed as a confidence problem: something to conquer so we can finally believe in ourselves and move forward. But what if some amount of doubt can actually make us better learners, encourage us to prepare more thoughtfully, and remind us to ask for help when we don't know what we don't know?

In this episode of The Practice Ground, Ken and Kari explore a different way of thinking about impostor syndrome, inspired in part by Adam Grant's Think Again. They unpack the difference between confidence and competence, Grant's idea of confident humility, and why the goal may not be eliminating self-doubt at all.

Through stories ranging from Ken's own experiences with impostor syndrome to Reese Witherspoon's preparation for Walk the Line and Halla Tómasdóttir's practice of befriending her impostor thoughts, they explore a more useful question:

What if doubt isn't always a signal to stop — but sometimes a signal that we're stretching into something we haven't learned how to do yet?

What you’ll hear inside the episode:

• Adam Grant’s contrast between the “impostor” and the “armchair quarterback” — and what it reveals about the sometimes surprising relationship between confidence and competence
• how Grant’s concept of confident humility offers another possibility: enough confidence to move forward paired with enough humility to recognize what we still have to learn
• how to get curious about what impostor feelings might actually be telling us rather than automatically believing or dismissing them
• why preparation, practice, and experience can give us evidence we may not be able to think ourselves into beforehand
• what Reese Witherspoon’s experience preparing for Walk the Line can teach us about doing something before we feel confident we can
• why comparing our beginning to someone else’s expertise can distort the way we assess our own capability
• Halla Tómasdóttir’s practice of befriending her impostor thoughts rather than waiting for them to disappear
• how self-doubt can sometimes point toward a growth edge rather than a reason to turn back
• why courage may need to come before confidence

Referenced in the episode:

Book | Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant

Book | The Practice: Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin

Book | The Gap and the Gain: The High Achievers' Guide To Happiness, Confidence, and Success by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Podcast | ReThinking with Adam Grant | Reese Witherspoon on Turning Impostor Syndrome Into Confidence (aired October 25, 2022)

Podcast | ReThinking with Adam Grant | Befriending Your Impostor Syndrome with Iceland's President Halla Tómasdóttir (aired December 17, 2024)

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Ken Li is a confidence coach. Connect with Ken on LinkedIn, where he regularly shares mindset tools, resources, and strategies to help professionals who second-guess themselves feel as confident inside as they look.

Kari Watterson is a mindset and habits coach. Connect with Kari on Instagram (@theadhdhabittrainer). where she shares her ongoing series, The Habit Training Diaries, or visit her website at KariWatterson.com.