Are You Suffering From Analysis Paralysis?
August 28, 2015There are times when I look at my life and realize that I’m not 20-something any more. The phrase “Just Do It” showed me that last weekend. When I hear “Just Do It,” I think about Nike and the ad campaign that started in the late ‘80s. It’s tough to believe that Nike campaign is over 25 years old.
My kids are now using “Just Do It” in another context that I hadn’t heard of prior to this weekend. A young actor, Shia LaBeouf, has created a viral sensation with an intense motivational speech. My son’s throat got sore trying to imitate Shia’s “Just Do It” and as I type this, his raspy voice is still recovering from his many attempts at recreating the intensity in the video.
No matter which “Just Do It” resonates with you, the message is still the same. Actions are how we make progress in life. I know I make more progress when I actually exercise than when I just think about exercising. Funny how that works.
It’s not the little things like going to the gym or working a bit longer so that I can rationalize not going to the gym where the Just Do It become critical, it’s the bigger things. I’ve seen this happen with people contemplating life decisions like “should I buy a house now?,” “I know I have enough money to live the rest of my life, should I retire?” and “what college should I attend?” (along with many other questions) fall victim to over-thinking. The old Ben Franklin method, listing pros and cons on one sheet of paper to see which side is more compelling can help bring clarity, but still doesn’t prompt action all the time.
Overthinking is something that I do far too often. I was having a conversation with one of my coworkers about my habit of considering, reconsidering, re-reconsidering, waiting a bit, thinking about what I thought about, and eventually making a decision. He called it “analysis paralysis” and I am quite guilty of that. If I had to count the number of times that an opportunity passed by without me acting on it, all because of my overthinking, I’d run out of fingers and toes very quickly.
In subsequent conversations with friends, it seems like nearly everyone I know is afflicted by this analysis paralysis. I’ve seen it happen at a personal level and a business level. Heck, we see it in Congress all the time!
What can you do if you’re in a situation where you are unable to make a decision? You can think Nike or Shia LaBeouf and Just Do It. Or, if a platitude isn’t enough to get you moving, there are some other things that can help break the cycle of analysis paralysis:
Determine if the decision is a big decision or a small one. Big ones probably deserve critical thinking, while small ones (what shoes to wear, where to have dinner on date night, etc.) can probably be made without excessive analysis. (“Can I retire today?” is a pretty gigantic decision.)
Set a firm deadline for big decisions. If you put it on your calendar and set a deadline, the odds are significantly higher that you will get it done than let it slip. On my birthday each year, I have an Outlook reminder to update my net worth statement and I have reminders to get credit reports every 4 months (one from each credit bureau annually, spread out through the year) on my calendar as well.
Enlist support. Tell a few important people in your life or use the stickk.com website. If you’re accountable to others, you’re more likely to achieve success. I have worked with people who are trying to eliminate credit card debt and they’ve enlisted the support of their best friends to “talk them off the ledge” when they are in a store and see an amazing pair of shoes and they email me with their monthly balances on credit cards so that we can track their progress.
Consider making a big goal a bunch of smaller goals. Break it into smaller pieces and get the smaller pieces done one at a time. Rather than setting a big goal of “I will be completely debt free within 5 years,” you can say “I will pay off $500 of credit card debt for the next 3 months.” When you see the progress, you can see if there’s a way to pay $550 for the following 3 months. The entire time you are setting these smaller goals, you are getting closer to your big 5 year goal but it doesn’t seem so far out of reach.
Don’t aim for perfection. Aim for completion. If perfection is your standard, you’ll do fewer things and accomplish less. Get it done, whatever “it” is. Then, you can improve upon a finished project rather than bemoan the fact that you didn’t get anything done.
I spent 3 weeks working on an Excel spreadsheet to create a workout plan for myself. I wanted to get it right so that I had the right blend of strength training, cardio and some fun (I do a bit of MMA training so I wanted that in the schedule) workouts too. I looked at my work schedule and my kids’ schedule and tried to map out the perfect routine that had me doing something every day. After 3 weeks of planning it and getting it “perfect,” my travel schedule changed and my kids had events that ate into the time that I had planned for some days. I had to stop planning and start doing.
Was it perfect? No! Did I get a workout in every day? Yep but it looked nothing like the spreadsheet I had been working on. I now try to plan out only the next week or so, rather than having a strict schedule that I adhere to, and I’m happy that I put “perfect” on the shelf.
Analysis paralysis can be a temporary condition. It need not be a lifestyle. (I need to remember that periodically.) With a few quick, easy steps you can move from overthinking to overachieving.