This post came to me during my morning (non-guided) meditation with Insight Timer.

Use fear/anxiety as motivation to action, not paralysis. The animal brain fears, and this can be a good signal, and can inform my actions, but I tend to use it to justify taking forever to act, which accomplishes nothing but wasting time and giving me extra muscle tension or stomachaches.

Fear motivates the animal brain to (physically) fight, flight or freeze, but against the paper tigers of the modern era, most of the time these reactions are less than useful. I can’t fist-fight my boss, so I do pushups instead (good idea). I can’t run away from a scary email, so I distract myself on tech news sites (less-than-good idea 😅).

Freezing because I can’t decide which jobs to apply for or which JavaScript framework to use for a new project doesn’t help – at some point, you need to make a decision with imperfect information (and no decision ever has perfect information), and TRUST YOURSELF that you can always course-correct if needed (remember, you have a smart brain and can make your own damn decisions).

Reminds me of the Mormon analogy of taking a step to the edge of the darkness, trusting you’ll be able to see more once you get there.

Dear perfectionism – you DONT need to see the end from the beginning before taking the first step. Most of the time, perhaps all of the time, that’s impossible anyway 🤷🏽‍♂️. Allow yourself, no, expect to change course along the way.