11 Common Ways You’re Unintentionally Holding Yourself Back

Analysis paralysis happens when you overthink or overplan something to the extent that you feel overwhelmed and unable to get started. I’m a classic overthinker, and I’ve been in the analysis paralysis boat many, many times.

A quick anecdote from my personal life. From the time I was a child, I always knew I wanted to someday write a book. I made many false starts over the years. I’d sit down and write a long, involved outline and totally overwhelm myself. So before I’d even written a sentence of the book, I’d talk myself out of it.

I was good at writing short-form content, though. I’ve written thousands of articles, blogs, short stories, poems, and other pieces of content throughout my career.

So one day, I sat down to write a blog. I wrote a sentence. And then another. And then another. Without thinking about it, I kept writing. Every day, I’d come back and add to it. I emerged a week later with my first (unplanned) book. Once I stopped thinking about it and psyching myself out about everything that must go into writing a book, the book just flowed out of me. I’ve written 30 books since then. All I had to do was break my analysis paralysis.

No matter what your goal is, stop overplanning. Take one tiny step, whether it’s adding 10 steps to yesterday’s step count to move toward your 10,000 steps per day goal or putting a few brushstrokes on a canvas to start your masterpiece.

Don’t think about how long it will take to get there or how much effort is involved, or it could paralyze you. Even if something might take a year or two, time will pass regardless of whether you do it, so you might as well do it.