Analysis Paralysis
And some of my favorite strategies for overcoming it.
In an earlier post, I went over the importance of organizing a hierarchy for our creative goals and only focusing on one of them at a time. It’s a process I’d recommend to anyone who starts more projects than they finish. It’s also sometimes easier said than done.
If our desire to try and do everything all at once is what creates bottlenecks like this in the first place, well then of course it’s not always going to be obvious which pursuit we should make our highest priority.
It reminds me of being a kid, standing in the action figure aisle of the toy store, and being told I could pick just one…
So if you find yourself wavering between several options, or if you’ve made a choice but don’t feel 100% sure about it, here are a few things you can try…
Let’s start with a technique that Jessica Abel describes in Growing Gills. I can’t even express what a valuable resource this book is for artists. I discovered it when I was neck-deep in an incredibly ambitious film project that I’d been working on in fits and starts for several years. After employing her strategies, I was finally able to wrap production in two months.
Abel recognizes that there are different answers to this question depending on your current circumstances, but since we’re currently focusing primarily on the type of creative paralysis that prevents you from following through on anything, I want to suggest something she calls Quick Wins. Here’s how she defines them:
Can you finish this project pretty quickly and get it out into the world while you turn to new things? Then it’s a quick win. Getting smaller things done will build your skill set and your confidence so you can set more ambitious, longer-term goals later.
This isn’t just for smaller projects with a very fast turnaround time, it can also apply to anything you’ve already started that’s 90% of the way there. She also adds this really important note:
By the way, if this is your situation and your list doesn’t contain any projects that offer you quick wins, that’s a red flag. Come up with some.
What I love about this approach is the sense of momentum it facilitates for anyone who’s currently feeling stagnant. If you’re a writer who’s been struggling to make that a regular practice again, maybe start with a short story before setting out to craft The Great American Novel.
Growing Gills is loaded with incredible insights and it feels like I’m doing it a slight disservice by only highlighting this one bullet point. The entire book is great. I really can’t recommend it enough.
The next technique comes from The ONE Thing by Gary Keller. You begin by looking at all of your goals and then asking yourself this question:
What’s the ONE thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary?
I had a friend whose interest in photography grew from a casual hobby into a full-blown passion. She was interested in turning it into a side hustle, but was overwhelmed by how much time and effort she thought that would require.
She knew she wanted to create a professional looking portfolio of her work, find ways to advertise her services, and set up a way for potential customers to get in touch. So in this case, making a website was the one thing that would make all of those goals easier or unnecessary.
That’s the macro goal. Once you’ve identified yours, you ask this follow up question:
What’s the ONE thing I can do RIGHT NOW, such that by doing it, everything else will become easier or unnecessary?
This is the micro goal. It’s how you figure out what the next step to achieving that macro goal is. For my friend, the micro goal was deciding which platform she was going to build her site on and creating an account.
The first question establishes the destination, the second clarifies what you can do at this very moment to get closer to it.
We can also get slightly more philosophical with all of this. I was an avid reader of Oliver Burkeman’s work in The Guardian for many years. When he retired, he wrote an absolute mic drop of a final column titled “The Eight Secrets To A (Fairly) Fulfilled Life.”
The entire list is hugely impactful, but this point in particular resonated with me:
When stumped by a life choice, choose “enlargement” over happiness. I’m indebted to the Jungian therapist James Hollis for the insight that major personal decisions should be made not by asking, “Will this make me happy?”, but “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?” We’re terrible at predicting what will make us happy: the question swiftly gets bogged down in our narrow preferences for security and control. But the enlargement question elicits a deeper, intuitive response.
I was at a crossroads in my life when this was first published. I was feeling increasingly burdened by projects that had become quite lucrative, but that I no longer felt invested in. They were also taking up the majority of my time, which meant I was unable to pursue other interests or opportunities. As soon as I thought about my options in terms of which path would force me to grow as a person, everything became so much clearer.
But this doesn’t just apply to those huge, life-changing moments. It works any time you feel stuck. So if you’ve narrowed your list of creative projects down to two or three and you’re having a hard time making the final call, give this a shot. It has a tendency to snap things into very sharp focus.
Although, I’ll admit "Which one is going to force me to grow as a person?” would probably not have been the best technique to use when standing in that toy aisle…
And finally, I’m going to leave you with a technique I came up with that’s very closely related to Burkeman’s happiness vs fulfillment principle. In fact, it’s sort of a shortcut to reaching a similar conclusion. Whether I’m thinking long-term or looking for a quick win, if I’ve got several options in front of me and I have to make a choice, I ask myself this question:
Which one scares me the most?
I don’t necessarily mean in terms of scale or complexity. I approach this more in terms of vulnerability. Which project almost feels too personal?
Because here’s the thing — if it scares me, that means there’s a real emotional investment. This is something with stakes. And if it means that much to me, there’s a strong chance it’s going to resonate with someone else as well.
Let that sink in.
No, seriously.
There’s someone out there who really needs to see/hear/experience what you have to say. That’s why when it comes to your art, you should always run towards what scares you, not away from it.
So that’s that. I can do a deeper dive on some of these points in the future, but for now try one (or several) of them on for size and let me know how it goes. And if you’ve got any of your own tricks for breaking free from analysis paralysis, please share!
Take care, friends. Talk to you soon.
This is definitely where I'm getting stuck. I have a big project (a novel) that I'm trying to write and keep getting writer's block. It's hard to come up with micro goals when the big goal feels so all-encompassing. I may need to go back to the beginning and do a good old fashioned outline to try to crawl my way out of my creative rut, but maybe making smaller goals will make it feel less daunting. Finish a chapter, figure out this particular plot point, etc. The book is just a crime novel, but I also have a more emotional investment in it, so I feel strongly that I need to finish it. But it can be so hard to get over that discouragement....