When it comes to achieving big goals, there’s one piece of advice that almost every successful person dishes out: You have to take action, and do so consistently. In theory, it’s a simple thing. In practice, there are many barriers that make following this advice difficult.
One of those barriers is overthinking, a trait that many high-achievers unfortunately share. You know what you need to do, but you worry you’re doing the wrong thing. Or perhaps you put so much pressure on yourself to succeed at something that taking the first step feels scary because you’re afraid you won’t be good at that thing.
It’s a vicious cycle, and if you’re an overthinker with big goals, the resistance to action can feel paralyzing. But there are ways to train yourself to take action when you find yourself stuck in this loop.
1. Identify your reasons for overthinking
The first step is to identify the reason you have a tendency to overthink in the first place.
Sharon Spano, an organizational development psychologist who works with leaders and executives, says the cause of overthinking often falls into two categories.
“I work with clients who are literally wired [that way]; part of their brain is just slower in making decisions. They need a lot of information and a lot of time,” she says. In this case, having awareness is sometimes all it takes for them to change that action. This way, they can catch their behavior “sooner rather than later and make different choices,” she says.
However, that’s different than those who confuse decision-making with overthinking and procrastination, Spano says, giving an example of an engineer who had perfectionist tendencies as a young individual contributor. When he transitioned to building a company, that trait held him back.
This is a developmental issue, Spano explains. That’s when it’s time to dig deeper and ask yourself a few questions: “What is causing you to overthink something? Is it your competency, image, or fear of failure?”
Jolander Headley, a leadership development coach and the founder of Joe’s Academy of Music, an arts school, knows this feeling all too well. She recalls a time when her academy had an opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall. “In my mind, I’m thinking, Well, we’re not good enough yet; we’re not ready,” Headley says.
“With that,” she adds, “I lost an opportunity for my academy to be featured at Carnegie Hall.”
2. Think about what you’re capable of (or what’s possible)
After this scenario, Headley realized she needed to reframe her thinking. A lot of high achievers are afraid to make a mistake because “there’s this idea that if you fail, you’re not successful,” she says, adding, “That is so far from the truth. Oftentimes, failure is not the opposite of success; sometimes it’s just part of the journey.”
Rather than focusing on what could go wrong, Headley learned to make decisions by reminding herself what she’s capable of. Rather than thinking “We’re not excellent enough, I have to train my mind to think that what we’re doing, we’re doing it well,” she says. “This is the reason why we were invited in the first place.”
That was the approach she took when her academy was invited to put in a request for proposal to work with school districts. Her initial instinct was that they weren’t quite ready.
But this time, rather than thinking about what they don’t have, Headley asked, “Well, what should I start doing?” She invited others to help move things forward and delegated tasks and projects. That mindset shift prompted her to take action.
3. Confront the cost of overthinking
Headley also reminded herself that every action she doesn’t take due to overthinking leads to lost progress and opportunities. Many high achievers can also mistake overthinking or procrastination as a quest for excellence, says Spano. And sometimes they still have success in spite of their tendency to overthink. They don’t realize that their indecision and procrastination are actually costing the people around them, she explains.
That’s when Spano works with them to confront the cost of their mindset. They might be getting a lot of things done, for example, but are they efficient? Are they slowing down the progress of people they work with, or making it harder for everyone else to take the action that would actually move them forward?
She says one practice that can be helpful is to journal when you catch yourself stuck in an overthinking loop. When that happens, consider the results that you’re creating or not creating. If you’re working on something that involves other people, what is the response you’re getting from the people around you?
4. Celebrate forward movement and progress, not perfectionism
For Headley, the biggest shift toward being a doer rather than an overthinker was to focus on progress and forward movement.
High achievers can feel like they need to have everything figured out before they take action, “but excellence is not about when things are perfect, because truthfully, things might never be perfect; it’s life,” she says.
Progress comes from consistently doing your best and “improving yourself along the way,” Headley says, noting that she also learned that she can only do so if she focuses on taking the right actions that actually make a difference, rather than trying to do “the 25 things on the to-do list.”
Once you’ve identified those steps, Headley suggests turning them into action items and scheduling them on your calendar. She also suggests finding some way to keep yourself accountable, whether it be setting deadlines or enlisting someone else to check on your progress.
Headley is also a fan of celebrating forward movement, rather than focusing on completing everything before an arbitrary deadline (like the end of the year). Your aim, she says, should be to end the year (or whatever period you’ve set) “knowing that you have intentionally moved closer to what matters most.”
5. Commit to healthy habits
In addition to your mind, your body can also play a part in combating overthinking and allowing you to consistently do the things that are important to you. Are you taking enough time to rest and decompress from stress? Do you get enough sleep and exercise? Working long hours and getting insufficient sleep, for example, can lead to a loop of negative thinking and difficulty calming yourself down, Spano explains.
High achievers who find themselves unmotivated to take action might be unknowingly suffering from burnout and emotional exhaustion, says Headley. And they need to find a way to establish a healthy boundary so that they’re not “saying yes to everything.”
Ultimately, taking consistent action requires you to do it in a way that’s sustainable for you. “Success,” Headley says, “requires intentional rest.”
