One day I was sitting in my home office, considering all of the 10-gazillion things I had to do in order to get my business going and I realized with shame and embarrassment that I had been in this place for months. I was stuck big time. I continually ran the list over and over in my head, I talked about it to other people to the point they were getting tired of hearing me say the same things again and again, and I even “tried” to do a few of the things on my list with no success…I woke up in the mornings filled with anxiety because I was thinking about all the things I had to do. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night with the anxiety. And it was bad. I was overwhelmed, I was overthinking everything and I was going nowhere fast.   

Have you ever heard an Olympic athlete say that the key to their success was thinking? Or a famous actor or singer? They didn’t become famous by “thinking” their way to success. So why is it that we spend so much time thinking about our goals, our dreams, our visions, and not doing them?  

The dictionary definition of thinking is “using thought or rational judgement”. And these “thoughts” that go around and around in our heads can be ideas, notions, opinions, views, impressions, feelings, theories, judgments, assessments or conclusions, to name a few. The list of possible thoughts is impressive! No wonder we get caught up in our own thoughts. There’s a lot going on there. 

Thinking itself is not bad, or wrong, nor should it be ignored. The athlete had a thought at one time that they wanted to try out skiing or ice skating. But they didn’t stop at the point of the “thought”. They used the thought as a catalyst to the next phase of action and they didn’t stop moving forward.   

For many of us, however, the “thought” is where we get caught up. In fact, that was where I was when I was sitting in my office. I was overthinking everything and not taking any steps. The question was, how could I move beyond that prison of my mind to actually changing my life, living my dreams, and accomplishing my goals?  

Believe it or not, the actual process is simple. It’s doing the process that is the hard part. When you are in this phase of overthinking everything and you are feeling anxiety, exhaustion, and overwhelm, finding your way out of it can seem impossible. I know that’s what it felt like to me.  

So I did what I had been teaching my clients to do for years…I took a step. I did one small action step and that was it. I stopped looking at the big picture, at the giant, grand vision that I had for myself and my business and I started where I was. I spent an hour writing emails to contacts that I had been meaning to reach out to. Then I took another small step…I researched something about my website that I had been putting off. Then I took another step… 

I stopped thinking about it. I just looked at my list and did the next thing on it. Figure skaters don’t sit there at the beginning of their practice and go over and over the list of things they need to do in order to learn how to do a triple Salchow. They get out on the ice and they do the first step. They learn to do a single jump and they do it again and again and again until they have mastered it. Then they move to a double and finally they are ready to begin to learn the triple.  

It’s simple then – stop thinking and start doing! Pick a small step and do it. That way you won’t let the fear take over and keep you in the overwhelm and the overthinking stage. Just take a small step, do it and check it off your list. Then take another small step, do it and check it off your list. Soon you’ll be ready to do the triple Salchow…