Read this if you want to cure your overthinking for good

3 weeks.

That’s how long it took me to send last week’s newsletter.

It shouldn’t have taken that long.

Here’s what happened:

Since I was previously on hiatus, it felt great to finally get back into the groove.

So I thought, this next one better be a banger.

But you see my friend, this is where disaster struck.

3/15 came. Nothing done.

3/22 came. Nothing done.

I was “slowly chipping away” at it, I told myself, which is code for doing nothing and avoiding it.

I fell right into the trap of my own expectations.

The only thing I had to show for in those 2 weeks was a nasty cocktail of:

• anxiety

• overthinking

• procrastination

Until finally, the week of 3/29 (last week), I had enough.

I was so sick of this cycle of overthinking and procrastinating, I said fuck it.

I’m sending a newsletter this Friday, even if my brain explodes.

Every day, I buckled down, focusing solely on writing out the newsletter.

By Thursday 3/28, I finally finished it and scheduled it for release on 3/29.

Boom.

Easy, right?

Well…

Here’s your big takeaway from all this:

I screwed up and it mainly comes down to 1 thing:

I got too caught up in making it good.

(I need to learn to take my own advice)

Because I added this extra pressure on myself, it created extra anxiety.

Because I had extra anxiety, it led to procrastination.

Procrastination led to overthinking.

Overthinking led to never doing it until I finally got so sick of my BS.

Here’s the thing:

On a really hot day, when you’re thirsty, it’s too late, you’re already a little dehydrated.

You should be actively hydrating throughout the day so you don’t get thirsty to begin with.

Overthinking is the same.

When you’re overthinking, it’s too late, you’ve delayed action for too long.

But when you create all this resistance like I did, delaying action becomes inevitable.

What to do instead:

1. Don’t make it good. Make it fun.

As a Creative, you sometimes get so caught up in how you want your audience to receive your work, you forget one crucial thing:

It’s supposed to be fun.

If the topic is interesting to you and you enjoy writing about it, that has to come first before any consideration of your audience.

Ultimately, the goal isn’t to make 1 song, drawing, or masterpiece, it’s to make many of them over time.

The only way you can guarantee showing up to the next one?

Make it fun.

2. Let completion in itself be the reward.

Wanna know the easiest way to be miserable?

Tie your happiness to an external outcome that you can’t control.

Every new piece of piece of art is a new beginning.

You couldn’t possibly know how it will turn out.

That’s what makes it so exciting.

So instead of “making it good” be the reward, allow the chance to explore ideas and how they connect all the way to its end, be the reward in itself.

3: Set hard deadlines

But here’s the kicker…

Without a deadline, you’ll be wandering aimlessly forever.

Deadlines are there so you don’t run off a cliff into overthinking territory.

This is where I messed up, I didn’t take the deadline of 3/15 all that seriously.

You need 2.

1. A daily completion deadline

This is a set amount of time per day you dedicate to the task. In my case I set a timer for 35 minutes. At the end of it, you’ll feel good that you showed up, and that’s what counts.

2. A full completion deadline.

Set a date for when you have to finish it by. Remember, all of this is to combat overthinking. If you don’t set a hard deadline to completion, you’ll get sucked right in to overthinking.

And that’s the story of how I cured myself of overthinking.

Do me a favor, yeah?

Shoot me a reply and let me know what you think of this.

I fixed my email flow so I’ll actually read it this time.

See ya’ll next week!