‘If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.’- Bruce Lee
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This is one of my most favorite quotes and something I completely believe in. Naturally, when all you do is think and think some more, you can never get anything done.When you overthink a certain situation, idea or decision, you experience a phenomenon known as ‘analysis paralysis.’ This paralyzes your mind and keeps you from taking any decision at all, let alone a good one.
In this post, I’ll talk about why you need to fight analysis paralysis and will also give a few actionable tips on how to actually achieve this.
How Analysis Paralysis Paralyzes You and Your Life
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When you overthink something, you end up creating the following problems for yourself:
Often, overthinking makes you create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. For instance, when I had a bad habit to overthink stuff, I used to come up with about 5 more problems than I had before each time I found myself overthinking a certain task. When I decided to write my book, instead of thinking how to write it and then actually working on it, I used to spend hours thinking of how to market it, whether or not it will actually sell and other similar concerns. What happened was that I wasted about a week just thinking about all these worries and could not even write a single word.
Not only that but overthinking also makes you succumb to analysis paralysis which often keeps you from taking any decision. I have seen my husband suffer from this a lot. He has a habit of going into too many tiny and unnecessary details that he ends up becoming overwhelmed and when he feels emotionally swamped, he finds it nearly impossible to take any decision or action at all. Analysis paralysis is indeed a big enemy of productivity and when you fall into this trap, your productivity starts going down the drain. I saw this happen to me when I wanted to write my book.
Moreover, analysis paralysis often makes you feel inadequate and not good enough. When you think too much about an issue, it often starts to appear bigger than it really is. When you feel a problem is quite huge, you start feeling intimidated by it and when something starts to intimidate you, you are likely to feel that you aren’t strong and powerful enough to fight it. When this feeling starts sinking in, your self-esteem and self-confidence starts dropping low which makes you feel bad deep down.
If you nurture a habit of analysis paralysis, you slowly unleash your inner demons. You find it difficult to do any task, let alone doing it properly. You often find yourself criticizing yourself and you are likely to nurture limiting beliefs about yourself.
When these issues engulf you, it is likely that you won’t get your work done and slowly you’ll sabotage your chances of fulfilling any of your goals that you have set for yourself and any dream that you aspire of achieving. I have seen people suffer a lot and fail to actualize their goals because of analysis paralysis which is why I am always advising people to fight this urge to live a more meaningful life.
When you fight this urge, you can actually get your work done and when you complete your tasks, you start feeling more confident of yourself. This helps you achieve a sense of fulfillment which consequently allows you to fight the many tiny to big depression episodes that have a bad habit of haunting you time and again. Yes, depression is often rooted in not feeling good about yourself and this feeling often stems from not doing worthwhile tasks. As you can see, everything is related to one another and a tiny episode of analysis paralysis can spark a series of events that can slowly poison your life. to save yourself from the harms of analysis paralysis, try the following hacks.
Easy Hacks to Thwart Analysis Paralysis
Just Do it: Yes, imagine you are the brand ambassador of Nike and you actually have to do your task. The moment you assign yourself any chore or when a task is assigned to you, just do it. Just start doing it and as you do that task, you’ll find yourself figuring out a way or ways to do it. For instance, if you have to clean your house, just pick a broomstick and start cleaning the first part of the floor you see. This is a good trick to break the overthinking habit. Once you nurture the habit of it, you can then move on to brainstorming a few ideas on how to do a task and then get started quickly with the best option.
Limit Yourself to 3 Options Only: Often, analysis paralysis stems from having too many options available to you. When you are presented with several options, you’re likely to analyze all of them and as you do that, you’re likely to fall into analysis paralysis. If you restrict yourself to a few options only, you’ll know you’ll have to choose from amongst them and will take a decision quickly. Whenever you plan to do something, try to limit yourself 2 to 3 options only. Quickly weigh their pros and cons and get started with the best one.
Bring Your Mind to the Present Moment: Often analysis paralysis occurs when you wander off in thought. Instead of thinking about what to do now and how to do it, you find yourself thinking of things that may happen if you do something wrong or how you did something wrong in the past. Thinking about your past or future is what keeps you from taking action in the present. So when you find yourself slipping into analysis paralysis, gently bring your awareness back to the present and live in the moment. If you find yourself thinking ‘What if I make a mistake?’, say to yourself, ‘How about I try doing this right now and see how it goes.’ Talk kindly to yourself and bring your attention to the moment because it is your present that you are living in and your present that you need to use. Tell yourself ‘I have this task to attend to and I must focus on it.’ Do this a few times and you’ll start focusing better on the task and even do it.
Try these hacks and if you practice them consistently and are kind to yourself, you will find yourself taking more meaningful actions instead of overthinking stuff. I hope you enjoy and can benefit from this post. Do show your love by upvoting and resteeming it.
If your fear of failure is what keeps you from taking action, read my posts on this topic:
Why You Shouldn’t Fear Failure
An Adversity is Not the End of the World