Stop Overthinking and Become an Action Taker

If fear is the opposite of progress, then action is the opposite of hesitation. Hesitation comes from uncertainty or over-thinking things.

It’s good to have a plan, but as the famed military strategist, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel once said, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

Remember that your plan may fail, and not because of any flaw in it or you, but because you didn’t know everything.

Taking action means that you need to be able to change your direction, and even change your entire plan on the fly.Keep in mind that it doesn’t matter if your plan is perfect. Even the best thought out plan will have eventually have to change. That often happens in the middle of implementation.

Overthinking the plan is, in essence, pointless. We wonderfully imperfect human beings do this because we are trying to over-compensate in other ways, trying to anticipate the change in the plan before we even take the first step.

That’s like trying to catch a fly by analyzing every direction it might take while buzzing about the room. By the time you have the alternative tactics laid out, the fly disappeared long ago.

Overthinking will stagnate you. The definition of the word stagnate, according to Dictionary.com, begins with this line:

To stop developing, growing, progressing, or advancing; It continues: To be or become sluggish and dull.

Raise your hand if you’d like to be described as sluggish or dull…or perhaps the words lethargic, listless, draggy, drippy, indolent, or slothful sounds better? When you overthink a subject or a question, you spend more time thinking about it than is necessary or productive. That is not to say that every question should be answered by a snap judgment – making quick decisions doesn’t necessarily mean that they will always be the RIGHT decisions. Especially when thinking about questions that will affect your life, your livelihood, your health, or your family – just to name a few – making snap decisions may not be the best way to go.

For instance, when I was trying to decide some years ago, before coming to Connecticut, if I was going to apply for a promotion with my current employer, I had a decision to make.

It seemed that just “waiting my turn” wasn’t going to be the most productive way to go. I’d been a full-time employee for a few years, received one promotion from Junior Programmer Analyst to Intermediate Programmer Analyst, and had been a part of some significant projects that had gone well.

I was one of the go-to people who were asked to watch over contracted employees and to shepherd them along until they learned our systems, despite the fact that they were paid a LOT more than I was as a municipal employee. I’d proven myself – shown my mettle, so to speak, and after reading the job description for Senior Programmer Analyst for the fifty-leventh time, I was pretty confident I met the criteria.

I thought, considered, and ruminated over putting my name in for the promotion, and then just went for it. I waited and waited, and then I was told that there was no money in the budget to promote any more people and I’d have to wait. They were gambling on me NOT leaving and on my being willing to be a good doobie and just wait my turn.

At the time, I was a single mother with a son. My son’s father was no longer a part of our lives and provided NO financial support. It was all on me. Now, I had the happy benefit of still staying in the home I grew up in, but I had plans! I wanted a newer car, I had house renovations planned to split the house into a two-family, so I’d have my own independent space, and I needed the extra income from the promotion to help make all of that happen.

In my moment of disappointment, I happened to notice another job listing – for a Senior Programmer Analyst, the title I wanted, but it was in the City’s Law Department. I didn’t know anything about the practice of Law, but I figured being a Senior Programmer there couldn’t be any harder than staying where I was and remaining an Intermediate Programmer who was doing Senior level work, but not being compensated for it.

I submitted my application – along with a few other people, and I was interviewed a few weeks later. Then they offered me the position, and I felt through my sense of loyalty to my supervisor that I should tell her what was going on so she wouldn’t be blindsided by my departure.

Less than a week later, I was offered a Senior Programmer position in the IT Department where I was already working. The very same department that told me they didn’t have the budget to promote me a few weeks earlier.

I didn’t have to think very long about that at all – I refused to stay. I did consult with some trusted advisors (my mother and another senior programmer) and they both said if I stayed, I’d have a target on my back, and it would be a less stressful life if I just took the new offer and walked away.

I didn’t look back.Overthinking can become a way to discover all the ways something could go wrong, rather than finding a plan for change. Overthinking will tie you up in knots and make it impossible for you to proceed. If I had overthought the decision to take the promotion, I would have been putting my destiny in the hands of someone else – the Department Heads that begrudgingly offered it to me only after they knew someone else wanted my expertise! That experience, among many others, taught me the value of taking action.Think for a moment – what’s something you’ve wanted to take action on that you haven’t jumped into yet? What's stopping you from taking action? Is it fear? Is it that uncomfortable sense that you might be taking on too much?

Perhaps you're waiting for the right break instead of making your opportunities in life? Or maybe you believe you're not smart or talented enough? Maybe you believe it’s not the right time, or that circumstances aren’t quite right, the stars aren’t aligned, and the winds of Fate just aren’t blowing your way.These negative beliefs are holding you back. If everyone who wanted to stretch, grow, get out of a bad situation, or challenge themselves to a new level of greatness waited until the timing was perfect and everything was going smoothly, they’d never make a move.I’ve heard multiple inspirational speakers say that the graveyard is the saddest place on earth not because all the people there are dead, but because there are hundreds and thousands of unlived dreams right there with them. Dozens upon dozens of inventions never created, songs never sung, artwork never brought to life, and ideas never realized.There's a reason why so many intelligent, wonderfully imperfect, loving and creative human beings fail to create the lives and projects they have in their hearts and souls. They tend to overthink everything and some of them are afraid to take risks. Now I’m not saying you should throw caution to the winds and just jump willy-nilly, but I am going to encourage you to stop overthinking and become more of an action taker.

You don’t have to jump off a cliff the first go around, but I’ve got some ways that you can start becoming an action taker, and some powerful reasons why you should make these moves right now.