How to Break Free from Analysis Paralysis and Start Taking Action When You're Feeling Stuck

0:0010 years ago, I made the decision to build my personal brand that was elevated, yet approachable, and reflected who I was, not just what I did. I created my website with ShowIt because it's true drag and drop freedom so you can easily build and update your site. Plus, their real human support team, game changer. Want to try it for yourself? Head to jasminestar.com forward slash ShowIt for a 14-day free trial and first month free when you subscribe. Ask yourself, will this decision matter in 10 minutes, 10 months, or 10 years? Now, this helps you put things in perspective and you stop sweating the small stuff.

0:35I spend most of my time on what matters in 10 months and then in 10 years. I simply let go of things that don't matter in 10 minutes. Welcome back to the Jasmine Starr Show, a place where we discuss business mindset and today getting the heck out of your own head and into action. All right, I want to take you back. It was 2009, 2010, and I was invited to be a keynote speaker at an event called WPPI. This is for Wedding Portrait Photographers International. And I have to tell you, it was one of, if not the largest convention for photographers, videographers in the world. It happened in Las Vegas, Nevada, and they had rented MGM, like the entire conference center at MGM.

1:24Now, normally this conference, they have breakout rooms where keynote speakers will go into large ballrooms. However, this was the first and I think only time they had rented the MGM arena. There were 10 ,000 photographers in that arena. This was also like, as I'm walking behind stage, you see like photos of Christina Aguilera, U2, other huge performers that have performed at the MGM arena. And there I am like walking behind stage. And when they first made that present, like when they first made the offer, I was like, I want to back down. Like there's no way I could speak at MGM arena. There's no way I could speak to 10 ,000 people.

2:07Now at this point in time, I wouldn't even consider myself like a speaker. I was a photographer who liked helping and teaching other people, but 10 ,000 photographers in an arena, that was a totally different thing. But I chose fearful action instead of safe inaction. And I have to tell you that presentation, it catapulted my speaking career and my classification as a leader in the photo world. I will never forget being in the MGM arena, finishing the presentation, walking off stage, and all I felt was, was that okay? Like all I asked myself was, did it land? And I had this idea that after a presentation, I don't know, like when people speak in front of 10 ,000 people, I don't know.

2:56I thought to myself, I actually didn't think to myself, what would actually happen behind stage? So it was myself, JD, and a security guard. And he walked us out the side. And so we exited out a door, a nondescript door in Las Vegas. There we were walking at the MGM food court. And then JD and I walked into, I'll never forget, it was Emeril's. It was like an Emeril Lagasse restaurant. We walked right in. We sat down at a table of two and JD said, so how did it feel speaking at MGM arena? I have to tell you, that was the first time that I had said, I am so happy. I took fearful action instead of safe inaction.

3:38So in this episode, you're going to learn five different ways analysis paralysis can show up and how to overcome it in five simple, and I mean simple strategies. And then you're also going to get a framework started with bigger picture projects that I like to call the toddler framework. Oh, and don't worry, you're going to see why I call it that. I am a mother of a toddler, so I feel pretty good about it. And you're going to find yourself using that framework all the time for just about any situation because it's so dang simple and it's effective when you need to start a big project, but you're feeling hesitant.

4:10So before we get into action, let's start with understanding analysis paralysis because this is like the enemy of action. And it shows up in five main ways, which was what we're going to talk about. And just in case you're wondering, Analysis Paralysis hits about every entrepreneur, artist, and creator. You're not alone. In fact, I created a reel recently about Leonardo da Vinci, like the Renaissance man. He was a painter, a sculptor, an inventor, a scientist. And he's still today considered a legendary genius. But here's the thing. Da Vinci was also notorious for leaving projects unfinished. Why?

4:47He struggled with a classic case of analysis paralysis, which was fueled by, wait for it, perfectionism. He'd spend years meticulously planning and researching, and a lot of times he'd abandon these projects before completing them. Okay, so let's pause. Do you know the feeling of abandoning a project before finishing it? well then you're in good company you and da vinci come from the same ilk you know mona lisa smile that famous painting well some say he spent a decade on that painting alone y 'all over 10 years and yes it's a masterpiece but his unfinished projects mean that the world will never be able to experience his full vision what he could have fully stepped into now i'm sure some of those unfinished projects, they could have been just as groundbreaking if he had just finished them.

5:40So what can we learn from Da Vinci's struggles? Even the most talented people can get stuck in a perfectionist trap. Progress is way more important than perfection. Don't let the fear of making decisions hold you back from taking action and creating something truly extraordinary. And here's a side note. Sahil Bloom, Jen Gottlieb, and I recorded an episode about this exact concept and getting into action. It's titled Change Your Life in One Year. I'm going to link it in the show notes in case you want to go back and listen to that if you're ready to be like, I want to take action and I want to jump in and write about now.

6:12Okay, so back to this. Analysis paralysis is basically when you're overthinking to the extent of avoidance. It looks kind of like it's going to be in your ear and it's going to be telling you research until you're blue in the face and then it convinces you that perfection is the one and only option when that's simply not true. Here are five ways analysis paralysis shows up so that you start noticing it and stopping it. Starting with number one, planning purgatory. This is where you find yourself stuck in endless cycles of brainstorming, endless cycles of strategizing without taking concrete actions to implement your plans.

6:47Secondly, we have fear of failure. This is when the thought of putting yourself out there, it potentially keeps you frozen in place. Third, indecision aversion. This is the fear of making the wrong decision. And this can lead to analysis paralysis as you try to predict every possible outcome and then weigh them all before committing to any action at all, resulting in inaction. Fourth is information overload. This is when you get bogged down by the sheer volume of data. When we really only need a fraction, if any, of that information before taking action. Action will lead you to the data that you need.

7:23And fifth, perfection paralysis. This is being obsessed with something, being, looking, and seeming flawless to the extent that it will prevent you from ever releasing it out to the public at all. Now, let's do a couple of examples. So we'll do just two so you can move into strategies that will get you into action. So here's an example of planning purgatory. Let's say you have a great idea for an app, but you spend so much time researching the competition and tweaking features that by the time you launch, There are so many more similar options out there than would have been if you were to launch it sooner.

7:59And even though, hey, it's still a great app and there's still a lot of room for you too, you could have gotten a lot more attention and traction in sales if you had launched it earlier. And even worse, you would have made mistakes and learned necessary lessons sooner, and that would have made you further along in your career. All right, let's try a different example. Maybe you want to revamp your marketing strategy, but you get stuck comparing platforms, reading endless articles, and never actually implementing anything new. So you stay stuck in neutral, which is no bueno. Okay, this type of analysis paralysis is information overload with a heaping side of planning purgatory, right?

8:42So I want us to stop and consider what this actually means. That you are doing a great job with research. Bravo. You're doing a great job looking at all the ways that you could do something better. Great job. But if those things are actually stopping you or slowing you from taking action, I would say, hey, that is a bit of analysis paralysis and we need to pause this. Now, I went over these because once you're aware of these different types of analysis paralysis, you can identify it and then use one of these strategies that we're about to go over to get the heck out of it. So here's the key takeaway before we move on to the strategies to overcome this.

9:23This is the key takeaway. This is the one thing I want you to know. Analysis paralysis doesn't just cripple business growth, but it can make you distrust yourself. So what do you do about this? Okay, here are five strategies that I think are going to help you take action when it comes to when you're feeling this way. So let me name them each for you and then we're going to dive into each one. You know how we do here on the show, we do the frameworks. Okay, giving yourself of restraints, the five-second rule, creating a bias towards action, the Pareto principle. Okay. I want us to pause. And then I want us to actually say, I'm ready.

10:00I don't care where you're listening right now. You can be at the gym. Just whisper it in your headphones. People think that you're singing along. I'm ready. You're driving. Say it out loud in the car. I'm ready. If you're cooking in the kitchen, if you're in line waiting, just say, I'm ready. I'm ready to get out of analysis paralysis as quickly as possible. Say it with me. Three, two, one. I'm ready. Now, if you did not say that you're ready to get out of analysis paralysis, you could just stop listening right here. Legitimately, this whole episode is about taking action. So if you don't take action at the end of the episode, I'm going to say something that might offend you.

10:32Okay. I don't know how bad you want it. If you prefer to stay stuck in a place of analysis, paralysis. There is somebody out there who is less qualified, less educated, with less money, who's going to win because action is the indicator of success. Okay, so if we want to get out as quickly as possible, let's dive in. Number one, give yourself restraints. There's a strategy that's coined by an incredible entrepreneur and author by the name of Tim Ferriss, and he called it the power of constraints. This is when you intentionally limit the number of options available to you so that when you're faced with a decision, instead of trying to consider every possible choice, you impose constraints such as deadlines, budget restrictions, or other specific things.

11:19Okay, now listen, I know that it sounds counterintuitive, but by narrowing your options, you can reduce that, what they call a cognitive overload when your brain is going like haywire, you reduce your cognitive workload and decision-making becomes easier for you to take action. So here's an example. Okay, so we asked ourselves on the team, should we host an in-person event? So we set up restraints to help us determine the best answer. We made intentionally, like we intentionally made the process harder. Why? So that it could help us make a decision easier. So we were deciding, should we host an in-person event?

11:59Now, I'm gonna go on a side note. I want and I wanted to host an in-person event. I was so excited to do an in-person event. I'm ready for it. But just because I want it and I'm ready, I am not sure if the market is ready for the way that I wanted to do it. Like, oh, you think you're ready? Prepare your heart. Okay. So what we decided to do to ensure we were making a good business decision and not an emotional, that sounds fun, decision, we gave ourselves restraints. Number one, it had to be in June. I don't need to explain why the other reasons, but I'm just saying we knew according to our content and revenue calendar, it had to be in June.

12:36Number two, we had to profit at least six figures or else we wouldn't do it because we could do other things that profited more. Three, we had to get proof of investment to a small group of people before making the offer public. We can dive into that really quickly. We sent tests and saying, are you interested in coming? and in order for somebody to even be considered to buying a ticket, they had to put down a$1 ,000 deposit. Yeah, that was the constraint. Number four, we had to be able to create and complete the event content in May. That was like we were giving ourselves these very short time frames, like everything had to be done and locked in by May.

13:16And five, it had to be something people said they wanted specifically from Jasmine Star. I know I just referred to myself in third person, but I'm actually looking at this as a business decision. Like, I know it's weird. We're just going to roll with it. But we often look at projects and we're like, is this a Jasmine Star project? Is this a social curator project? I'm involved in other businesses and projects. And so we identify them as their name. We had to say, somebody is not looking for a live event. They're looking for a live event with Jasmine Star. Those are very different. And so those five constraints empowered us to make a decision.

13:55And guess what? Given those constraints, we decided to say, you know what? We don't think it's June. We think it's later this year. That is how we got to the decision quickly. All right, let's get into strategy number two for getting out of analysis paralysis. I know you're like, I need a good breath. Take that breath right now because we're diving in to the five second rule. Now, I love Mel Robbins. I can just love her. She's just the best. You are not familiar with her podcast or show. She's incredible. And she is that person in real life as she is on her show. She is a no-nonsense, let's take action.

14:28She coined this phrase, the five-second rule. The five-second rule is a very simple technique to overcome procrastination and then take action. The five-second rule suggests that when you feel the urge to act on a goal or make a decision, you count down from five and then take physical action. five four three two one i get out of bed five four three two one i make the decision if i'm vesting or not oh i know it's crazy it's like you give yourself that habit so by doing this you interrupt the habit loop of overthinking and hesitation and then you empower yourself to move forward regardless of feelings of fear regardless of those feelings of uncertainty This strategy helps overcome and also prevent analysis paralysis.

15:17Why? It's getting you to take immediate action before the doubts and the hesitations totally take over. Ooh, that's good. Let's go, Mel. Strategy number three is choosing to create a bias towards action. I'm going to say that a little slower. A bias towards action. If you have been listening to this podcast for more than two episodes, you know that I am about action, even if it's flawed, even if somebody says it's wrong, even if somebody says it's imperfect. I just come from the school of belief and my history has proven that I will never be the smartest. I will never be the most qualified. I will never be the richest in any particular room, but I am very quick to take action.

15:58And the action guides me to the thing that I am supposed to do. And on a side note, if you are the smartest and the richest and the most qualified in the room, you in the wrong room. That's a different episode coming up on another episode of the show. However, if we talk about a bias towards action, this is intentionally training yourself to choose action instead of waiting for the perfect information, the perfect timing, the perfect solution. Now, I say the word train in air quotes because that's all this is. Like you're in a daily mindset bootcamp. You have to train yourself to take action. Now, I get it.

16:31At first, it's scary. And you're like, maybe I make a mistake. You're not. The biggest mistake you can take is not taking action. Action leads to the next step. Not thinking. Action. Messy action. Scrappy action. Scary action. Embarrassing action. Doubtful action. Unrefined action. It is action. But you have to choose it. Action will never choose you, honey. You will like to stay safe. I will tell you right now, if you think you're in your comfort zone, I'm telling you, you're in a death trap. Because if you're comfortable, it means you're not growing. And if you're not growing, honey, you're fading.

17:08You're falling into those things that you think are keeping you safe, which are actually just keeping you stuck. So if you feel stuck, the idea isn't to just stay stuck and think of your way out. The idea is to choose a different action every day until you find something that gets you from the couch into the White House. Okay, maybe not the White House. I got a little carried away. But it'll get you off the couch. and that is step one. Okay, so how do we talk about choosing? Well, you train yourself every day with tiny bits of action. When you adopt this mindset, you're going to understand that it's okay to make mistakes and learn from them along the way.

17:45That is normal. If you don't normalize that your biggest icons and leaders and favorite people out in the business world, the sports world, the entertainment world, if you don't accept that making mistakes is the way you grow, you're going to feel like it only happens to you and then you become a victim. We ain't got time for victimhood, honey. We only have time for victory. This is where am I coming up with this stuff right now? I have no idea. People are like, you just have had too much coffee. You know what? Or have you not had enough? Okay, I have to tell you. By choosing action, it's helped me gain momentum and confidence and it will do the same for you.

18:19Now, strategy number four is the 10-10-10 rule. And this was created by Susie Welch. And it's going to help you avoid getting bogged down by minor details. It's simple, y 'all. Ask yourself, will this decision matter in 10 minutes, 10 months, or 10 years? Now, this helps you put things in perspective and you stop sweating the small stuff. I spend most of my time on what matters in 10 months and then in 10 years. I simply let go of things that don't matter in 10 minutes. Now, if I don't respond to your text message, I'm sorry, truly, but I'm focused on the future. If I don't respond about like where we should go to dinner, I'm sorry.

19:05I'm really focused on the future. If I don't know what reality show you're referring to, I'm sorry, but it's not going to matter in 10 minutes. Now, I debated actually talking about this because it could run people the wrong way. I know, but I am working on cutting out paralysis. I'm not going to let a 10 minute factor or decision affect where I am in 10 years. And this requires sacrifice. And this is how I'm managing it for right now. I might change it in the future, but right now I'm just not going to prioritize or get convoluted or even stop if the decision or idea or response doesn't really matter in 10 minutes.

19:41Okay. And I know I should add a caveat. This drives my husband crazy because he says, where do you want to go for dinner? I was like, I don't know. I do not have a brain cell to tell you where I want to go for dinner, what I want to make for dinner, what I want to eat for dinner. If there is a plate of food and it is somewhat warm in front of me, I think we're going to be okay. That drives him crazy. But I was like, baby, this meal doesn't matter in 10 months and it doesn't matter in 10 years. So we fall into this. I ask for grace. I set expectations. I'm not going to be the girl to pick out where we're going to go to eat.

20:13That is yours. Are we cool? We agree. And then I'm like, off the hook. Okay. strategy number five is the Pareto principle this was coined by Wilfred Pareto's 80-20 rule we're going to apply it here so you want to focus on 20 of actions that will deliver 80 of your results okay so people hear that I hear something I used to hear that and I would be like well how do I know what are the 20 that are important well now what I want you to do is identify the high impact activities and then prioritize those. That's going to be, what do I think? And it might be just like a really educated guess and that's fine.

20:49It's totally okay. What might I do that will get me the most amount of outcome? Maybe not responding to that email, even though it's really important. I care about that person. Maybe that's not going to be the lever. Maybe that doesn't qualify in the 20 % today and that's okay. So we covered analysis paralysis and the strategies to overcome it. Now what I want to do is I want to talk about the framework called the five whys framework, aka the toddler framework. At least that's like what I am calling it because no one asks why more than a toddler. Listen, if you are familiar with living with or ever had a toddler, their favorite question is why?

21:32Please brush your teeth. Why? It's time for you to finish your food. Why? It's not going to go to bed. Why? Okay. I first heard of the five whys framework during a business scaling program through the Latino Business Action Network at Stanford University. I was in this program for six months and we would be at Stanford and we would be introduced to professors and theories and thoughts. Now we had to answer the five whys of our business. This framework implies that you can get to the root cause of just about anything by asking why five times. Now, this works really well to get to the root cause of basically any business problem or maybe even your life issues.

22:13I will tell you that when we went through this five whys framework at Stanford, we're sitting in a business lab. It was a branding lab. And we had to ask these five whys. And I am telling you, they were like grown men crying in the room because we had to answer why we were building our business. And then you would answer and then you have to ask yourself why. Then you would answer, you have to ask yourself why. And then all of a sudden, they got to the root reason and it was never because they wanted to make more money or stand out or step into the big vision. It's something deeply rooted in who they were.

22:54The five why framework works extremely well for analysis paralysis and when you're trying to make moves towards something big, but you just can't get started on that big project, like a new business, a new product launch, or a campaign. This strategy helps you find the why behind your hesitation so you can address the root causes and get into action. So let's say that app creator that we just talked about a few minutes ago, let's say that she is stuck in the planning purgatory, constantly revisiting the app. Here's where the five whys might come in. Why haven't I launched my app yet because I'm worried it's not quite right.

23:31I'm going to know when it's perfect. Why am I worried about perfection? Because I fear that the users won't take my app seriously. Why do I fear that users won't take my app seriously? Because I doubt my abilities to succeed. Why do I doubt my abilities to succeed? Because I faced challenges in the past and I worry about repeating them. Why do I worry about repeating past challenges? Because I haven't fully embraced the lessons they taught me. Okay, so you can see how this process can reveal a core fear or factor that's driving that analysis paralysis. Once you understand the fifth why, you can start to address it by directly sitting with that underlying hesitancy that's keeping you stuck and getting unstuck.

24:20So in this case, it could be asking yourself, where did things go wrong and what could I have done differently in the past situations? I know it's uncomfortable, but sitting with these types of questions allows you to confront your fears and move into action. So I want to do a quick recap. We began by talking about what analysis paralysis is, understanding different forms of each, which are planning purgatory, which is the endless cycle of strategizing without action. Then we spoke with the fear of failure, which is paralysis caused by the possibility of potential failure. Indecision aversion, which is the fear of making the wrong decision leading to no action at all.

25:00Information overload, which is feeling overwhelmed by excessive data and then you're delaying any action. Perfection paralysis, obsessing over flawless this, and then preventing any action. So to combat analysis paralysis, we discussed five practical strategies. Number one, give yourself constraints. This helps by removing overwhelm and simplifying the decision making. Then we talked about the five second rule. Five, four, three, two, one. This helps you overcome hesitation by taking immediate action. Thirdly, we're going to create a bias towards action. I want you to adopt a mindset that prioritizes action over perfection.

25:42Basically, whenever you question if you should take action, take the action. Then we also spoke about the 10-10-10 rule. This is when you evaluate any decision based on the impact in 10 minutes, 10 months, or 10 years. And lastly, we focused on the parental principle, which is to really hone in on the most important actions that yield the most results. 20 % of those actions that are going to 80 % of the results. Now, we also spoke about the five whys framework or the toddler framework, which is when you ask why five times to uncover the root cause of analysis paralysis. Now, by addressing the underlying fears or hesitations, you can confront obstacles and then move forward with that confidence you really want.