“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another but above all, try something.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Looking Forward
If you often find yourself paralyzed by fear or by the overwhelming number of options at your disposal, remember that you’re allowed to overthink as much as you want as long as you take action. We tend to underestimate action because we want everything to be perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. As Naval Ravikant once said, “Intentions don’t matter. Actions do.”
James Clear has written extensively about habits. In Atomic Habits, he said “Your actions reveal how badly you want something. If you keep saying something is a priority but never act on it, then you don’t really want it. It’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself. Your actions reveal your true motivations.” So maybe you told yourself a habit was important to you, but you find yourself ignoring it. Having an honest conversation with yourself is tough, but it helps you reflect on your priorities. That difficult conversation can change the course of your life.
In his book Excellent Advice for Living, Kevin Kelly said: “The only productive way to answer ‘What should I do now?’ is to first tackle the question of ‘Who should I become?’” This is another tenet of habit formation: when habits become part of your identity, you feel intrinsic motivation. The more you do certain habits, the more they reinforce your identity. It’s as if you small action you do gives you a chance to prove who you are.
We all have a choice to make. Mary Oliver put it best when she said: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do. With your one wild and precious life?” So we need to come up with a heuristic that helps us narrow down our options in a world that offers endless possibilities. Decision-making is an art and there’s no right or wrong when it comes down to making those decisions. Speaking from personal experience, I agree with what Nassim Taleb said in The Bed of Procrustes: “What fools call ‘wasting time” is most often the best investment.” From now on, I’m turning that into a personal rule. So above all, try something.