Paralysis By Analysis

This is holding you back.

The type of person who subscribes to this newsletter is probably concerned with personal growth, accelerating their successes in life and reaching their goals, but there’s a problem amongst this group.

Paralysis by analysis.

I had this problem over the past few years, so I’m writing this so that you can learn from my mistakes.

The problem is this; people consume valuable content, read great and learn a lot of actionable advice, but never take action.

If that sounds like you, then today is the day you break the loop.

Earlier this year I stopped watching youtube videos, I didn’t pick up a book for over 6 months as I entirely focused on taking action. It led to incredible success and growth in both my personal and professional life.

In the last few years, I was stuck in that loop. I read over 50 books and watched hours of youtube content about personal growth, health and productivity, but I didn’t take action. I knew what I wanted to do and how to do it, I just hadn’t executed it. I was constantly planning, dreaming of what could be yet I hadn’t moved the needle.

There’s nothing wrong with gaining knowledge and planning, but the issue is once you start learning things your brain sends you reward signals as if you’ve accomplished something, when you haven’t. That’s why learning can feel so good but what use is it learning something if you never put it into action?

There are 2 levels to growth, I call them outsight and insight.

Outsight vs Insight

Outsight is what you see from the outside, for example before I made video content, I was learning about videos, production quality and so on. I was in the outsight stage, looking in.

As soon as I started making videos myself, I realised some things you can only learn by doing. This is where I gained insight. I was in the process and learning from my own experiences, successes and mistakes.

Outsight is like studying for an exam, insight is actually putting that knowledge to use in the exam. If you’re stuck in the former, it’s like preparing for an exam but never actually taking it.

What use is that?

You will never reach your goals from pure outsight. You’ll know how to get there and it will feel like it’s within reach, but to make things happen you actually need insight. You need to take action.

Ask yourself, are you overanalysing and stuck in outsight? Or have you taken action to get insight?