Author Mel Robbins talks about acting quickly before you talk yourself out of it in her book The 5 Second Rule. She explains it this way, “The 5 Second Rule: The moment you have an instinct to act on a goal you must 5-4-3-2-1 and physically move or your brain will stop you.”

We too often want to do something but then talk ourselves out of it. If not careful, we can cancel out our inspiration to act simply because we waited too long. The secret to taking action is to do it before the convincing voice inside of you sabotages your motivation. We can sell ourselves on anything. In fact, the longer we wait to act the more we sell ourselves on why we shouldn’t. Do not be plagued by the Law of Diminishing Intent, which says, “The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds are you will never actually do it.” Zig Ziglar looked at it this way: “If you do what you need to do when you need to do it, then the day will come when you can do what you want to do when you want to do it.”

Overthinking and overplanning is just a fancy way to procrastinate. It’s an excuse to not get moving forward into action. We convince ourselves we need more time, but in doing so we are simply stalling. Fear can disguise itself as perfectionism. The more we analyze the issue the longer we wait to act on it.

“Overthinking and overplanning is just a fancy way to procrastinate.”

In order to move forward, we have to practice Mel Robbins’ advice with the 5 Second Rule. Just do what you know is the right thing to do without overthinking and giving yourself time to talk yourself out of it. Force yourself into action by committing before you cancel….you’ll be glad you stepped out later.