Taking Action Even When You Don’t Have All the Answers

Starting Something New is Scary

Starting a new project, experiment, or even just a new paragraph in your manuscript is exciting, but it’s also scary. 

You’re excited about the potential outcomes but also worried about how much work is going to be involved, how your corals will respond, or how to convince others about your findings.

You’re just trying to not mess this up.

Instead of getting started, though, your fear leads you to put off the work entirely, finding other tasks to keep you busy. 

Alternatively, you get stuck in “analysis paralysis,” trying to identify and solve problems that are unlikely to occur or don’t even exist.

Regardless, the outcome is the same: you’re not making progress.

Planning is necessary–Taking action is more necessary

Wait, Coach Matt, didn’t you say that planning is essential to your success?

Why yes…yes I did.

Planning does help you anticipate and avoid problems, but there is a limit to how much planning you need before it becomes a problem of its own.

Overplanning like this is analogous to statistical models. Eventually, models can be overfit and perform worse.

The only way to prevent overplanning from becoming a problem is by taking action.

You won’t feel ready…but you’re never going to feel ready.

Just take the first step.

Ready to move forward?

As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, wrote:

"Questions are answered as you move, not before you move. Moving forward with an answer that is partially correct will usually fill in the gaps faster than waiting until you come up with a plan that is perfectly correct."

If you’re ready to move forward but are still nervous, let’s chat.

Book a call with Coach Matt to talk about what’s got you stuck.

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