It's been a while since I made any interesting content.
Not because I don't have any topic to write or create something around, but mainly because I'm always questioning myself what should go next.
What are the crumbs of bread that I'm leaving all over the Internet? Where do they all lead? Is it going to be confusing if I talk about this or that?
And thinking and thinking goes my next few months without anything else worth while being posted.
I should just get started writing instead of thinking how
I've been feeling like I'm the Snorlax blocking my own path towards becoming a regen creator
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This tweet from barely a year ago is proof that I was in exactly the same spot back then.
Here's the catch about stopping at analysis: it feels productive, without getting anything done.
So, I'm going to use this newsletter as a way to vent my own internal monologue while figuring out how to escape paralysis.
And I'm keeping the whole process open so in a few months I can make sense of what worked and what didn't.
Getting to move again
It's super easy to fall in analysis by paralysis if your goals and processes are complicated and don't feel doable.
So taking things apart and tackling piece by piece might (in theory) do a lot of the effort.
This is the principle behind "Tiny Habits" by BJ Fogg. In the book and framework of the same name, Fogg describes how every single behavior humans perform are based on a simple equation
Behavior = Motivation + Ability + Prompt
We usually talk about Motivation when discussing our habits and how we behave, but Fogg mentions this is just one part of the whole deal. The other two are equally important and can be a lot easier to design for.
Ability describes how easy it is for us to do something. That's why big, epic challenges can feel motivating at first but then they just overwhelm you and make you forget about trying to do that one thing.
Prompt is what makes us start doing the thing in the first place. It can be waking up -> checking your phone. Or logging into your computer -> checking your email. Or any other activity that triggers a behavior.
While motivation can be harder to change in any given moment, behavior can be designed with the other two variables in mind.
I'll keep this framework in mind on the following days, as I try to break from paralysis.