A tactic for beating analysis paralysis
Do you ever suffer from analysis paralysis?
It’s that feeling when you're so caught up in a decision and overwhelmed at the options available to you, that to choose one or take action feels impossible. Motivation fades and confidence crumbles.
Consumed by endlessly evaluating our options, we then end up do nothing or at best, take action half-heartedly.
It’s like we’re plagued by an elaborate fear of missing out (FOMO). We pressure ourselves to make the right choices and the best decisions, all the while worrying that whatever we do we’ll be leaving significant upside on the table in the options we reject.
When the paralysis wins, our situation remains fundamentally unchanged. Progress is prevented, results go unclaimed and we are stuck in the same place where we began. All we’ve gained is another story to tell of what could have been, another ‘what if’, a further ‘if only’ to share with others as we lament our lowly progress.
Always action
Ready, aim, fire.
Think, Plan, Act
On your marks, get-set, GO!
The third step in each of these calls-to-action demands action. Coincidence? I think not.
There’s enormous merit in preparing and planning and we need to be clearly focused on our target if we’re to stand a chance of hitting it. If we don’t plan and figure out what we’re going to actually do then we’re effectively resigned to flailing around without purpose, relying on luck or serendipity to deliver our prize.
Preparation is paramount. Ensuring we have the skills and tools for the job is essential. Recruiting the appropriate people into our team is vital.
Sooner or later though, we've got to actually do something!
We need to pull the trigger and execute on the plan.
This is where the analysis paralysis can kick in. It’s in this moment where many blink, second-guess themselves and reconsider.
Pushing on through this fear, battling through the moment with confidence, even if it’s fake-confidence is where the bold and successful differentiate themselves from the meek and the also-rans.
Action carries with it a risk of failure. It demands that we confront our vulnerability, accept discomfort and push outside of our safety-zone.
Not all action is equal
Aimless action and busy-work are unlikely to deliver meaningful progress but are instead a way of prolonging the instinct to procrastinate.
Meaningful action demands that we accept the uncertainty, that we embrace the possibility that this might work or that it might not work, and that we give it a go just the same; wholeheartedly and with our full and focused attention.
We may have underestimated the scale of the challenge. We may have overestimated how much interest the world had in our idea. We may have completely missed the point. We may need to recruit help, or put in more practice. We may need to do it differently, harder, faster, bigger, shinier or more subtly.
Maybe, just maybe we will get it right first time.
Each time we act, we give ourselves a chance of achieving success merely through putting ourselves onto the field of play. Sooner or later we’ve got to get in the ring and into the game. When we do, we gain one more experience of what it feels like to take action. It’s another rep completed in the process of building the strength to act.
Taking action when our instinct tells us not to is a skill that must be practiced repeatedly and diligently. Rejecting flight and choosing to fight must become second nature, the habitual choice. Just like every skill we strive to perfect, it takes time, repetition and application to master.
Do, act and fire at will. It’s the quickest way to hit your targets and to achieve your goals.
If you do, you may win. If you don’t, you give yourself no chance.