Thinking is an easy place to get stuck

​A couple of years ago, some colleagues interviewed me on their podcast about the work I do around adverse childhood experiences. Yesterday, I had the honor of going back on their show to interview the host as they kick off their new season.

One of the first questions I asked their host Casey was how did the podcast get started.

Casey explained that during the pandemic, many of the programs they were offering weren't possible because you couldn't visit people in person. So her boss suggested they start a podcast to keep information flowing. Casey told me she told her boss, "but we don't know anything about doing a podcast."

Her boss said - we'll learn.

Casey said over the next few months she kept throwing out reasons why a podcast wouldn't work. Meanwhile, her boss forged ahead making plans like there was no chance it would fail.

And here they are - season three - 30 episodes later.

Mel Robbins says we all have a bias toward action or toward thinking when it comes to change. She says with thinkers, it's that pause that gets them in trouble.

Thinkers hear the idea about a podcast, then pause to think about it, and before they know it, often unknowingly, they are sucked into a habitual way of thinking that talks them out of action.

Meanwhile, folks who have a bias toward action have ordered microphones and lined up a guest for episode one.

The thing is, it's not like we are born thinkers or born action takers. It's just a way of thinking that becomes a habit. The more we pause to think in moments of opportunity, the more it becomes our natural instinct to listen to someone else's podcast while we go on thinking about starting ours.

Many of us would call this pause - this stopping to think in the face of an opportunity - procrastination. I looked up the definition for procrastination and found this one:

'Habitual or intentional delay of starting or finishing a task despite knowing potential negative consequences.'

I'd always thought of procrastination as that delay - but never considered it in the context of 'knowing potential negative consequences.'

But many of us are living those consequences. Many of us are living with not knowing where that idea would have gone if we'd only taken action.

Casey told me a school superintendent listened to one of their episodes and insisted that their staff listen to it. And when that staff listened, what did they hear that helped them influence the students they work with. How many lives were given an opportunity to experience better lives as a result of that one episode.

Sometimes the negative consequences of us being thinkers and not action-takers extend well beyond us.

Challenge yourself. The next time you find yourself in the middle of that pause - in the middle of thinking about an idea - stop that pause from falling into the tired old habit of indefinite delay. Of inaction. Of nothing....

It's never too late to re-shape your bias from thinking to doing. You simply have to take command of the pause. Take command of that delay you know is going to have negative consequences.

Many of us have mastered thinking. And there's definitely a place for thinking. But thinking alone will never get you to season three. It's much more likely that thinking is where you'll find yourself getting stuck.

Don't get stuck; take action.