How many times have you come up with a brilliant idea for something only to psych yourself out of doing it? If you’re an over-thinker or a perfectionist, you’re definitely talking yourself about doing something on a daily basis. Maybe you get all up in your head and convince yourself it’s no longer a good idea even though you were super excited about it before. Perhaps you pick apart your ideas and focus on what could go wrong instead of what could go right.

While it is important to think things through and consider pros and cons, overthinking is also a type of procrastination that contributes to inaction. In order to succeed, you have to take imperfect action instead of living in your thoughts. In this post, I share the common reasons why we talk about things ourselves, how this can sabotage your performance, and how you can behave instead of letting your ego get in the way.

Why we talk ourselves out of things

One of the biggest reasons you talk yourself out of things is because you think you don’t have the confidence to succeed. Here, the keyword is *think*. When you decide to over-analyze your level of trust, you’re going to figure out things about yourself that you’re not sure about. This just convinces you that you’re not supposed to take initiative.

This also happens if you overthink things to death.When you go on tangents in your head before you hear about all the worse case scenarios, you tend to fear bad consequences. But really, in your own mind, you’ve just produced these negative effects. You will be concerned about what people are going to think of you if you don’t succeed. This puts the attention back on the negative result again, which causes more resistance to a better outcome. People are going to think what they think of you regardless. They’re either going to judge you because you’ve messed up or they’re going to criticize you because you’ve never made an attempt to improve.

You keep back from doing what will actually make a difference, not only in your own life, but in the lives of others.Whatever ideas you have could truly make a difference in this world. Instead of focusing so much on yourself and how the outcome will affect you, think about how it could positively affect others. With all this overthinking and inaction, you later regret the things you’ve never done and beat yourself for not giving it a try. We’ve all used the expression, “Better oops than what if,” and it’s real. If you’re a sensible and rational individual, you’re more likely to be able to cope with whatever goes wrong–but you have to believe that for yourself.

How to stop talking yourself out of things

Don’t wait until you’re ready. There is strength in planning, but scheduling also becomes a method of procrastination when you stop completing the job.We’re preparing because we want to be confident and ready, but there’s just nothing like feeling ready. Instead, you have to build your confidence by doing small things every day to get you out of your comfort zone. Whatever the main thing you want to do is break things down into little moves and put away any self-sabotaging feelings that pop up. Don’t let perfectionism or the desire to be ready give you a justification for procrastination.

Another key thing is to start working on the midst you have for yourself. Strong thinking gives you the courage to take initiative and allows you to become mindful of the times when you sabotage yourself. Build a mental routine like this one that lets you develop healthy thoughts for yourself and concentrate on what you want to do.

What’s one thing you can take action on today?

I hope this post has encouraged you to get out of your own head and believe in your own ideas. By doing things before you’re ready, working on your mindset, and holding yourself accountable, you’ll start to see big changes in your life.