Don’t Overthink it. Ship it.
Perfectionism and overthinking will be the death of actual doing.
If you’ve gone through my Medium profile, you’ll notice that I’ve been writing every day since July 1st.
My posts aren’t long, sometimes they’re thoughtful, sometimes they’re word vomit. But I made a commitment to myself to put content out in the world every day, and I’m delivering.
Not all my work is satisfactory. Some posts — especially the more popular ones — still get edited weeks after being written. Over and over again. But that doesn’t matter when I first write my piece. In the beginning, I type it out, backspace a few times, and ship as soon as my thoughts have been spelled out. I have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Being part of a community of young entrepreneurs, I notice that one of the biggest roadblocks to shipping is overthinking and perfectionism.
“This isn’t good enough. I need to keep working on it.” And it gets set aside “to be reviewed later (it never is).”
“I don’t think that my point is coming across clearly enough. I need to keep working on it.” And it gets set aside “to be perfected (it never is).”
In the end, this thought boils down to, “I’m afraid.”
That fear is understandable. Someone out there might actually read what we wrote and disagree with us. Or find it horribly written. Or judge us for our thoughts. Or some other tragically terrible thing.
So what?
This is something that goes beyond writing blog posts that people might read. This is applicable to life in general. Will you live your life paralyzed by other people’s opinions? What they think doesn’t matter unless you choose to give it power over you.
Let go of that fear. Move past it. Outgrow it!
Go on that adventure people think sounds ridiculous. Write that book that maybe no one will read. Drop out of school and find your own way. Go to school and find your own way.
Don’t overthink it, live on your own terms.
To hell with everyone else’s opinion.
