When you're learning to trust yourself and listen to your intuition, whether the action has your intended outcome or not, you are doing the right thing. If you, like so many others, struggle with overthinking and perfectionism, taking any action is better than being frozen in decision paralysis. You may spend days, weeks, or months thinking about the perfect way to execute an idea, but in reality, you’ll learn very little by thinking and so much more by failing. We have this deep-set desire for everything to go perfectly the first time, but without going out, making mistakes, and learning hands-on, we’ll never have enough information to know what it truly takes to get it right.

Action leads to information, and that information leads to knowledge—if we're willing to set our emotions aside. Fail, learn, improve, repeat. You need every single wrong attempt to learn enough to execute properly. When we let go of our attachment to future outcomes and focus on doing our best in the moment, we open up space for growth and change.

First, you need to let go of your relentless attachment to what you want, to give space for the opportunity to learn about what is. Perfectionism shows up in different areas of life, like relationships.

For example, let’s say there's someone you're attracted to. You spend so much time daydreaming about asking them out, imagining how the date might go, what you would talk about, whether you share the same interests, and if they’d want a second date. You’ve become so attached to a potential outcome that now you hesitate to even talk to them because, “What if it doesn’t go the way I hope?” The way you're hoping for isn't connected to reality—you don’t have enough information. It really is as simple as saying, “Hey, I really enjoy seeing you around, and I’d love to get to know you better. Want to grab coffee sometime?” Let go of your perfect outcome to allow space for the real one.

What else can this look like? How about setting boundaries? Wanting to be the perfect friend, partner, or anything else can lead us into behavior patterns that don't serve us.

When I first started therapy in 2019, I hadn’t even heard of setting boundaries. The concept was completely foreign to me. My entire life, I had been the person friends would come to when they needed to vent or get advice. It was a two-way street in that I had attached my own sense of worth to being the person who gave advice and reassurance. So when they came to me, I’d drop everything to listen. As a result, I was absolutely burnt out. Between my difficult marriage, a high-pressure job, and having a constant stream of people sending me vent videos on Snapchat, I had zero emotional space for myself. I couldn’t even begin to think about my own problems unless I was in absolute crisis mode, which led me to vent to my friends just as they did with me.

One of the first boundaries I learned to set was asking my friends to say, “Do you have space for this?” before sending me a rant. At first, I was horrified. How could I be so selfish as to not drop everything for the people I loved? What if they stopped talking to me? What if they felt unsafe sharing their problems? What if, with all this free time and energy, I was forced to confront everything I’d been avoiding? But from that day forward, my relationships began to change. I started to see which ones were give-and-take and which ones were just an endless stream of negativity.

So, what is it that you’re too afraid to start? Is it a new business idea? A workout routine? Talking to new people? Changing the relationships you’re in? Changing the relationship with yourself?

Nothing changes if nothing changes. Behaving the way you always have will only keep you where you are. How do you need to behave to get to where you want to go?