Think Outside The Box: Overcoming Analysis Paralysis

With a practically unlimited number of jobs, niches, responsibilities, aspirations, and opportunities in front of us, we’re constantly going through waves of excitement and anxiety.

And with these waves come a never ending stream of thoughts and ideas.

This firehose of thoughts is part of what makes us human. It allows us reason, find the best solution, and develop strategies to spring us into action.

These thoughts help us to choose the logical path forward, and ultimately feel good about our decisions.

But when logic can’t always provide us a clear answer, our reliance on this pattern betrays us.

The problem is that humans like to have a clear plan in place, and the lack of direction creates an immense amount of friction for taking action.

Our default reaction is to try to resolve this internal conflict through more thinking, with the belief that the answer will reveal itself to us.

This leaves us in a vicious cycle of overthinking, inaction, and guilt, commonly referred to as analysis paralysis.

And getting out of this rut is anything but easy. It requires us to accept an imperfect solution and embrace the unknown—two things that go against our innate human tendencies.

We’re logical beings. Chronic over-thinkers. Choosing this path almost always feels unsatisfactory to our analytical brains.

But if we want to overcome our anxieties, smash through the largest barriers in our lives, and ultimately achieve more, we have to learn to prioritize action over thought in these situations.

🔬 What the Science Says

I’m a very analytical person. In the past, I’ve tried to reason my way through all of my problems, much of the time to my own demise.

I know as much as anyone how hard this advice is to accept.

But one thing we can’t deny is science, and luckily the science is pretty ubiquitous about this: Overthinking is holding you back.

Too Many Options Make Us Anxious & Less Happy

The Paradox of Choice, a term coined by American psychologist Barry Schwartz, describes the conundrum we face with increased optionality.

While an increase in choice can lead to better results, it also triggers heightened anxiety, indecisiveness, and discontent.

Instead of enhancing decision-making, the abundance of information at our disposal frequently instills a fear of making incorrect choices.

High Optionality Breeds Inaction and Worse Decisions

Because having a high degree of choice brings all of these negative feeling—and our default behavior is to try to resolve this internal conflict with more thinking—we get stuck.

Our brains have limited decision making power, and being surrounded by countless options tempts us to spend it all on things that ultimately don’t matter.

This is seen in things like customer buying behavior, where a high degree of optionality is seen to consistently reduce conversion.

More frighteningly, we even see this in our courts.

Even life-altering judicial decisions are affected by this constant draining of our decision making reserves. Just imagine all the other areas of our lives this is affecting.

🚀 Take Action: 3 Mantras to think less and do more

Think less. Do more. It’s truly so much harder than it sounds.

And whether you realize it or not, it’s probably the #1 thing holding back progress in so many areas of your life.

It definitely was for me.

But internalizing three key mantras completely transformed my ability to think less and do more, and I have full confidence that they’ll help you do the same.

1. Embrace Imperfection

Stop using perfection or irrelevant uncertainties as an excuse to procrastinate.

Unless we’re talking about rockets or space shuttles, nothing needs to be perfect.

Before you spend time on a decision, ask yourself how much that decision actually affects the outcome, and how reversible that decision is.

Chances are, you’re wasting a ton of mental effort and energy on decisions that ultimately don’t matter.

2. Simplify Your Life

Optionality and decision fatigue breed inaction, so make sure you’re using your mental energy on decisions that are actually important.

Simple can be boring, but boring isn’t inherently bad.

Start simplifying as many aspects of your life as you can. The amount of mental energy you’ll gain back will astound you.

3. Think Outside the Box (Get out of your head)

Speaking or writing down our thoughts removes the problem from hypothetical what-if-land and makes us view things more objectively.

Make a deliberate effort to engage in habits that put us in this mode.

If you find yourself spending a lot of time trying to make a decision or having a lot of anxiety around the options in front of you, talk to someone about it. Put yourself in third person by writing it down. Or even just go for a walk.

You’re probably overthinking it, but sometimes it takes a different point of view to fully realize and act on it.

Facilitating consistent growth, whether that’s in our careers, relationships, or health, often comes down to focusing on the right things.

And it’s far too easy to get distracted by the endless decisions we face every day—most of which ultimately don’t matter.

If we want to lay down at the end of the day feeling content about the decisions and progress we’ve made, we need to be deliberate about where we funnel our decision making power.

This means embracing the unknown and prioritizing action over perfection.