You’re ready to get moving and start claiming your dreams. You have a dream to reality plan. You have goals. You even have strategies to achieve those goals. But you are face with analysis paralysis.

Yet if you’re honest with yourself, making your dream a reality and putting yourself out there is a bit scary. Implementation has risk.

So instead of moving forward to planning and executing the details you keep coming up with new ideas. There are so many things you could do that you slip into analysis paralysis. The end result? You do nothing…

When I was first married we decided to tackle the large project of putting a home theater in our basement – ourselves. It was stressful and after about a month I recall standing in the basement with my husband saying “We are going to Home Depot now or we’re not doing this. I’m done talking about it”.

I was ready for action planning! This is the stage of planning when you are done talking about ideas and have a need to start defining and executing the details of your plan. In the above example I helped drive us both to implementation. With other projects my husband was the one pushing me. Accountability can be a critical tool to overcome your own fear of risk.

An action plan is linked directly to your goals and strategies. The name itself implies that you will get your hands dirty and take steps towards your dreams. An action plan is the gateway to your dreams. It’s only when the rubber meets the road that you start to experience your dreams.

Here are 3 tips to help beat analysis paralysis:

  • WS 9.1.14 ActionPlanningDo Keep It Simple: The KISS principle is alive and well because it works! The picture to the right is all an action plan is; the details for how you’ll implement your strategies and meet your goals.
  • Do Start Today: Don’t wait until your plan is done before you start implementing the plan. Pick an action planning process (i.e. to do list, schedule time on your calender, the method above etc.) and start. No more excuses.
  • Do Accept Imperfection: Indecision and inaction are often driven by the fear that you’ll do something wrong. Embrace the fact that you’re not perfect (sorry to be the one to tell you that) and that you will make mistakes and sometimes good enough is well good enough.

Will you chose to battle analysis paralysis today and take a step towards implementing your dreams?