Escaping the Planning Trap: Moving from Overthinking to Purposeful Action
A few years ago, my partner-at-the-time came home and found me sitting on the floor of our house with papers scattered all around me.
I was curplunked on the ground, my face scrunched up, with a whiteboard packed with ideas and connections and names in front of me. Being new to the city we now lived in, I was making an elaborate plan for how to plug into the activist scene and who I needed to build relationships with to understand more about Tacoma politics.
It was – to quote her, even though I hated hearing it in that moment – “a lot of words.”
Looking back, that moment with the whiteboard illustrates a truth I still wrestle with frequently: I’m often afraid of “getting out there;” of doing the wrong thing; of not doing enough; of using my already-limited time, energy, and money in a way that isn’t actually that impactful.
And so instead, I ruminate, I whiteboard, I plan, I doomscroll, I simmer – and sometimes I boil.
Does that sound familiar to you at all?
It’s a frustrating dynamic – a strange combination of wanting to act, while using planning, overthinking, and “needing to learn more” to ensure I never do; of using my “lots of words” to protect me from taking a step into the possibly-uncomfortable terrain of the unknown.
And when I consider the broader societal forces that work to pull us away from our communities and collective action and toward individualism, saviorism, and the status quo, this analysis paralysis and drive to think too-big-to-be-actionable feels very much by design.
For me, the way I’ve learned to counter this is to 1) prioritize actions that support folks already doing amazing work, rather than starting things on my own, and 2) look for daily actions in my own life I can take that are relational and community-focused.
I’m reminded of David Whyte’s words from his poem “Start Close In:”
Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
Here are two questions I’m working with right now to help me take these small, “close in” steps that move me from my own thoughts and into action:
Who is already working on [the issue I care about] and how can I amplify, support, or join them this week?
What action can I take today that helps move my community and myself toward healing?
I invite you to work with these questions for yourself this week. Or if they don’t quite connect, see if there is a unique question alive in you that might help push you into the discomfort of taking action – no matter how small.
