I found myself in a state of complete paralysis. You see what happened is a couple years ago my wife and I sat down and really created the life of our dreams. We truly became the authors of our own story. Within doing this, it created a subset of problems. Now I say problems because these aren’t even first world problems. They’re pretty laughable, really. What we did is we actually moved to beautiful Bend, Oregon to explore the area and got a beautiful house right in the heart of downtown. Now our lease is coming up and now we’ve got a decision to make. Do we renew the lease? Do we get a house somewhere else? Or do we take our adventure van out and explore the United States?
You see, we have the opportunity to pack everything up, explore the United States, or build community right here in Bend, Oregon. Or move some place else. See our options are endless. And what this does is creates almost too much analysis. The pros, the cons. Because we want to do it all. And what has happened, or what it’s caused, I should say, is actually it’s caused paralysis. Now when I started thinking about this and I was journaling about this this morning, I started laughing.
I started laughing because recently I had a trip to Santa Barbara where I have a lot of friends, a lot of business associates. And we were talking about courses they were taking, things they were trying to do, movements they wanted to make in their business. And they were in the analysis stage. They were buying courses, they were studying, they were seeking out experts but they weren’t moving forward. And that’s where I started laughing because I was doing the same thing. I saw it in them and it was crystal clear. I would tell them, hey look, maybe you’re over analyzing the situation and what you want to do is take your first step. Take your first action.
You see, but I was doing the exact same thing. I was doing the same thing with where do we want to live? Where do we want to go? What do we want to experience as a new family?
Now when I look back, I’ve done this in all kinds of areas. When I look at the five to thrive, your body, as a trainer, I used to train people. I look at this all the time. They wanted to know, geez, how many grams of magnesium should I be getting, Doug? How many grams of protein? How many of this? How many of that? When in reality I just wanted to say just start by moving your body. You’ve been sedentary for ten years, don’t worry about this. You’re worrying about the details. You’re over analyzing and it’s not allowing you to start. So on your body, how often are you waiting for the perfect workout? Are you waiting for the perfect diet? You’re waiting for this to happen, you’re waiting for that rather than just doing the work. Rather than just starting.
In your mind, how often are you waiting for the perfect time to sit down and read a book? Perfect time to take a course? Or if you’re like me, maybe you’re reading too much. Maybe you’re reading too many books, taking too many courses, rather than picking one avenue to focus on.
Look in your soul. What are you doing? Is it not the perfect time, do you not know how to meditate? Are you taking meditation courses? Where are you over analyze these things? Maybe with your religion. Maybe you’re Christian and you’re over analyzing what you should be doing properly in your Bible Study or in your courses or what church you should be going to. It’s really up to you. It’s faith, right?
In your business, are you over analyzing things? Have you not made that hire yet because you’ve made it too hard to find the right person? Perhaps you’ve gone out there and you’ve over analyzed all these job sites and you just haven’t figured out just the basics of networking just to bring somebody in. You’ve over analyzed the situation. And because of that over analyzing the situation, you’ve been in a state of paralysis.
You see, I’ve been through this many, many times. And I’m sure you can relate to this in your own lives. In your relationships, in your mind, your body, your soul, and in your business. So today I’m gonna ask you to pull out your journal. Really do this. Write down mind, body, soul, relationships, and business. And where in those areas are you in a state of paralysis because you’ve been over analyzing? Are you taking marketing course after marketing course after marketing course rather than starting your own agency or rather than pushing it forward in your own business? Or just hire an expert? Do what you do best and hire out the rest, right?
Or where in your relationship are you over analyzing what the other person should be doing? You know, he or she should be doing this, this, this, and this, rather than just working on yourselves. You see, all of us fall into this time and time again. Whether you’re like me and you’re over analyzing where you should go in the next month, where should you want to be? All our problems are equal because they’re our problems. Regardless of how in depth they may be.
So I want you to write this down. I’d love to hear from you. So go over to the author of your own story community and share your results. Share it with a community of people that are just like you. Remember together we can keep growing. That’s it for me today. Remember, go out and be the Author of Your Own Story.
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