Analysis paralysis

Dear readers,

Have you ever gone through a period of time where, you lay out all of your life options on the table like a deck of cards, mentally calculating what to pick the best one to start with ?

But as minutes turn into hours, and yet you haven't managed to come up with any initiatives.

When the paralysis becomes too much of an ordeal, you flip the table and leave the scene for good, regretting about the time wasted on such an unproductive activity.

We, at least we, have some problems with deciding what's best for us, and often times we find ourselves spending ample amounts of time fortune telling ourselves into favoring one option over one another, and then another with yet another one.

It's something that I still personally deal with, since I have a day job, a side hustle and a dream of living abroad.

My personal experience with analysis paralysis

If you've read my previous posts about my misspent youth, I could only become more cautious about how I spend my time productively.

Because of my aging mother, my youth would only become more valuable.

Even though I managed to use my time for productive ends more than ever, I still struggle with what to do in my free time.

Should I embark on yet another pet project ? Or should I spend more time with my date IRL ? Or perhaps sending out more freelancing proposals will suffice ?

The answer is, and has always been, spending more time with my date.

Because let's be honest, it's the easiest and most flexible option.

And yet, I still pain over lost money-making opportunities, and by opportunities I mean "gamble". Because you can't predict how the fruits of your labor will materialize - probably it won't be anything of substance at all.

Therefore, in other words, I've been dragged into this competitive tug of war between what ought to be done, what I want to be done and what I desire at the moment.

Coping with analysis paralysis

A large part of my analysis paralysis has a lot to do with FOMO. Which stands for fear of missing out.

And let me tell you this...it's not fun when you constantly fear over the fact that you'll let a hard-to-come-by opportunity slip away from you by simply choosing an option.

For every second ticks, you feel as if your opportunity cost is piling up. Especially when society demands so much value from just one person like you, to the point that you beg your higher powers to provide you an answer, when you're already dealing with the day-to-day physical and emotional overheads.

To calm down, I needed to keep focus on doing very few things very well, and by very well, I mean spending lots of time for it.

Give yourself some constraints, and start from there.

And how do you give yourself constraints you may ask ?

Well, according to one wise man named Nassim Taleb, he argued in his book, Black Swan, that no choice is really better than the rest, so you might as well choose the one that you think will give you the best leverage.

And what is the leverage here, you may ask ?

Aside from my day job, I'd spend some time alone to slowly appreciate what I do, and not to overthink about the past that has happened, and the future that's yet to happen.

This would keep my mood up long enough for me to overthink less when I'm confronted with competing priorities.