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5 Ways to Overcome Analysis Paralysis

Shae Bynes
2 min read

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all. ~Brian Tracy

As aspiring real estate investors and experienced ones, we’ve all likely had moments when we suffered from analysis paralysis. These are the moments where we research, plan, evaluate, research, plan, evaluate, in an endless cycle and are paralyzed from taking action. Typically its due to fear of screwing something up.

I’ve been there…but what I’ve found in any business venture that I’ve started or been involved in over the past 10 years is that taking action, making mistakes and adjusting is really the only way to success. It always seems like highly successful people just did things overnight, but they didn’t! Sure, a person may have had good fortune, but know that it was combined with a lot of action and plenty of mistakes — some small and maybe some not so small mistakes!

I think many of us actually KNOW this, but its easy to forget and it is such a critical component to success, so I thought I’d share 5 of my favorite tips for overcoming analysis paralysis.

1. Practice decisiveness.  This is actually an interesting exercise.  Many of us (including me) have a tendency to take too long to make the most basic of decisions.  For example, what to eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner….or which template to use for a business card…stuff like that.  To practice decisiveness, you actually make a decision in 60 seconds or less.  Every time.  You can practice this on the small issues and then the slightly larger issues (both personal and business related decisions) and eventually you’ll be able to do this with the larger decisions. 

Don’t get me wrong…you want to ensure you have enough information to be reasonably confident in your decision when it comes to those few large, high value, highly significant issues, but once you have the data, make a decision and make it quickly.

2. Set a deadline for planning. Planning is very important, but its also easy to make the excuse that we haven’t done enough planning yet to take action. Set a deadline and be strict about it.

Let’s say you’re new to real estate and want to get your feet wet and build capital with wholesaling and you’ve pretty much educated yourself on the process. Great! Now its time for you to put together a plan for finding buyers and finding deals. Create a deadline for your plan — for a few hours, not 30 hours! Put the focused time in on the plan and then get busy taking action.

3. Have an attitude that embraces “Good Enough is Good Enough” — it’s not going to be perfect at the start, so once its good enough, you’re good to go! Successful people take action and make adjustments as they go along. Mistakes are a part of continuous improvement and the faster we accept that the better!

4. Remove complexity. When you make things too complicated for yourself, its easy to think that more analysis is required before action can take place. Don’t over-complicate things. Break down your plans into multiple simple actions that you can get busy on today.

5. Build momentum fast! One of the best ways to break the paralysis of analysis is to build momentum by staying focused and taking action. This is a step by step process and as you’re making progress, you’re building momentum, and once you have that, fight to maintain it and success is yours.

It’s better to be 80 percent sure and make things happen than it is to wait until you are 100 percent sure because by then, the opportunity will have already passed you by. ~John Maxwell

What are some other ways that you personally overcome analysis paralysis?

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Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.