Don’t overthink and look forward to failure.
I could never stop myself from overthinking. It’s tiring and you waste a lot of time.
- Do you imagine the best-case or the worst-case scenario?
- How long does it normally take you to do the action?
- Are you always trying to find the best option?
Learn by failing and getting feedback. Not by trying to solve the problem with “theories”.
I would spend hours of my valuable time researching and wasting my mental energy to do better things. Then to get covered in the mud. Avoiding the struggle. I worried about the pain, sadness, and all of my hard work being wasted.
I always tried to find the easiest way and look for tips and tricks. On top of that, I concerned myself with what other people will say about my actions.
It’s almost as if I wanted a guarantee of success. There is no such thing as a 100% fail-proof tactic.
Want to stop overthinking? Experiment, get feedback, and adjust.
Accept the negatives
You overthink and worry about the future consequences of your choices.
“What if I fail and all the hard work is for nothing?”
Fun Fact: People who fail early and quickly learn from it gain more achievements than those who succeed early.
The key is not to surrender to your negative feedback, pain, suffering, and hopelessness. People will laugh, scold, and tell you I told you so. But those are all just outside noises that you should just treat as mosquito bites.
They’ll keep coming but you are more than capable of dealing with the annoying buzzing as long you don’t shy away from it.
Training your brain
Our brain makes us do the easier tasks.
One of the biggest reasons why we overthink. In the back of our minds, we know that the more difficult choice often is better for us in the long run. But the brain refuses to let us experience the pain and struggle.
It’ll come up with all sorts of reasons why you should choose the comfortable choice.
The only way to stop it?
Always choose the harder choice, because it’s usually the best one. But what if it doesn’t turn out well? Trust me. 9 out of 10 times the risky choices I’ve made, none of the worst-case scenarios I’ve imagined came true.
This is especially true when dealing with another person.
The worst you can do is, think you know what the other person is thinking and jump to conclusions.
Aim for Good Enough
Just like eat, sleep, work, and repeat.
Progress, fall back, get up, and repeat. I’ve always felt guilty when I failed my habit goals or made the wrong decisions.
So I fell into the trap of analysis paralysis. Stop trying to maximize every choice.
Trying to maximize my every choice. Ultimately feeling unhappy with the results of my decisions, and negatively compare myself to others.
In the back of my mind, I always kept searching for the best.
While being miserable in the present moment.
Prepare loosely and adapt quickly
Your ego is destroying you.
You might think it’s smart to prepare yourself, lay out a detailed structured plan, and find the optimal time to strike at the right moment just like a lion would when hunting.
But you have it backward.
First of all a lion is “already” born with the body to rip apart its prey. You on the other hand are trying something you’re not used to. So spending large amounts of time to gain all this knowledge, tactics, tips, and shortcuts before trying it out and getting feedback is meaningless.
Put yourself out there as quickly as possible.
Do and learn repeatedly. Don’t expect it to work after a few tries. Noah Kagan said it best.
If you focus on results from the start, you’re doomed to fail.Start with 100 reps of anything and completely ignore the results. (Law of 100)
Unless you are making a big decision that will change your life, the best action would be to learn as you go.
You’ll find out what works best for you and customize successful people strategies to your own “success”.
Time over pleasure
Stop being too tough on yourself.
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
“But what if it fails? I don’t want to mess this up”. I needed to make sure I’d prepared enough so I don’t look like an idiot. Also, I’ll hate myself for making the wrong decision and it will ruin my whole mood.
Don’t be afraid of making the wrong decisions.
I’ve avoided doing 10 minutes of work just to scroll through social media or watch dramas.
Focused too much on pleasure and forgot to think logically.
Used alcohol and bought material items. To numb the uncomfortable realities of the present situation.
We’re experts at trying to find the “right” answers. Actually, no let me rephrase that.
We know the right answers but don’t like the solutions.
Conclusion
Fail better. How you fail determines whether you’ll succeed or not.
So at first “Just do it” (Nike does not endorse me but should). Only then will you find better solutions that work for YOU. Rather than what OTHER people claim.
Only when you fail do you have a better idea of where you’re headed.
A professor from the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) says, the lesson is clear:
“People should place a high premium on feedback, as well as on lessons they learn through failure.”
