Analysis Paralysis
Some of you have heard of this before; it is essentially when someone analyzes something so muchthat is causes them to become paralyzed through their analysis. They are unable to make a decision. In the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, he discusses how we as humans make decisions unconsciously, essentially without even knowing we have made the decision. Our brains analyze the situation so fast that our conscious mind doesn’t even realize it. It’s a great book by the way, and I won’t give away all of the details, but the basics of the book are about how humans make decisions.
I have found that successful people analyze situations, but they don’t let the data inhibit them from actually making a decision. The data or the information, if you look at it hard enough, will always give you a reason why you CAN’T make the decision. Don’t be paralyzed by the analysis. Below is an excerpt from my book Ask More Get More that expounds on this topic a bit.
THE TIME ISN’T RIGHT
Well, when is the time ever right? The light is never going to be green. The stars will never be perfectly aligned. Why is it that people always wait till the first of the year to make their resolution? That is an excuse. I know a guy who is a smoker and has been for fifteen years. One day in January he posted on one of the major social networking sites that he was quitting smoking in August because that was the month his daughter was born, and she deserved better. I guess she didn’t deserve better for the seven months in between. He continues to this day to post that he is changing his habits but never does. I recently reached out to him and told him that he needs to do it. Stop telling people you are going to change; just do it! Why wait? Every day you smoke it decreases the amount of time you will be on this planet and the time you will spend with your daughter. Why is it that all diets start on Monday? Why wait? You know what happens the weekend before? People gorge themselves and then attempt to diet. If you want to do something, don’t wait for the timing to be right. I recently bought some silver, and a friend of mine told me how it is going to drop in price and that I should wait. Well, he may be right, and it may be a mistake, and if so I will learn from it, but how would I feel if the current price of silver skyrockets to $180 an ounce? The time was right for me. I could make excuses for the next ten years to justify why not to buy, and I could convince myself not to buy if I listened to others. Chapter 2, Ask More Get More; pp 59