At no other time in the history of the world has there been the access to information that we have right now. Whatever your interests, there is a huge body of knowledge that can teach you almost everything you want to know. Unfortunately, that backfires on people from time to time, usually in one of two ways.
The most common is what I usually see called “analysis paralysis”. This happens when there’s so much information (probably some of it conflicting) that they can’t figure out what to actually do. The second is the opposite where, no matter how much information people have, they always feel like it’s not enough to make a good choice.
I’ll freely admit that both of these happen to me sometimes. The problem happens when I don’t recognize it immediately and spend too much time thinking and not doing. No one ever succeeded at anything by just having an idea. There had to be some followup.
Everyone needs an absolute baseline of information in order to be able to make any good decision. If your goal is being healthier, you’re probably going to clean up your diet and start exercising. Even if you haven’t decided what your plan is going to be, having any amount of sense at all should tell you that a plan telling you to eat nothing but celery and saltines probably isn’t the best idea.
I’ve posted before about creating goals and figuring out whether you’re progressing. After you’ve figured out what your goal is and defined your milestones, you need to start gathering the information you need to start working.
This is usually the point at which the pitfalls happen. If you’re looking for a diet plan, there are hundreds of them out there and every plan will work for someone. Any plan that isn’t completely stupid will “work” for most people, depending on what each person is looking to achieve. Will you go with Atkins? How about the Primal Blueprint? Maybe you’ll grab a book by Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, or Dr. Dre. PSMF? IF?
Quite honestly, it doesn’t really matter. At the beginning of anything, not all the details need to be in place. Obsessing over those details before you’ve even started is like worrying about a promotion at a company you haven’t even interviewed with. When you start looking at that sort of minutiae, take a step back and ask yourself whether this is solving a problem you actually have right now. If the answer is “no”, then stop doing it. As long as you’ve chosen something that’s sustainable, everything else will fall into place. Once you’ve gotten to that point, look at both pros and cons of what you’re trying to adjust. Will it help one area while hurting another? If so, keep looking. If not, try it. If it doesn’t work, try something else.
This doesn’t just apply to diet and exercise. It applies to financial planning, health, buying a car, spending more time with family, or anything else you can think of. No matter what you do, you will always get to a point where what you’ve been doing isn’t working anymore. At that point, it’s time to change something. Don’t change everything right away, just one piece at a time; preferably, whatever piece is the weak spot. Most things in life don’t have to be anywhere near as complicated as people make them.
- Set your goals.
- Set your expectations.
- Pick a plan.
- Keep it simple until simple stops working.
- Identify the weak point(s) and adjust.
After you’ve changed every piece and are still seeing no progress, it’s time to find a new plan. The benefit of this is that, if you’ve done it all right, you now have experience under you. Experience is still the best teacher.
After all, as Iron Mike Tyson once said, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
