I Haven’t Started, and I’m Already Overthinking (both an article title and just a statement)

If you are reading this, congratulations are in order.

For me, that is.

See, what you are now going to read in less than five minutes took several months to come to fruition, and over the course of those months, it often seemed doomed to failure.

The struggle did not lie in making the visible product.  A site like this one needs only an idea, a domain, and a little bit of designing.  This article requires a premise and Microsoft Word. 

So, what made a simple website and blog post so dramatically difficult to produce?

The answer, I’m afraid, lies with me. 

In a post introducing myself and the website, it makes sense to offer some backstory, and with that backstory comes a confession, a recognizable one if you’ve read any other lifestyle blog out there, particularly ones on mental wellness or creativity.  It’s the confession of an overthinker.

However, if you’re reading this, it stands to reason my confession did not become an excuse, and I would hope this article stands as a testament to reality, a reality that nothing comes from nothing, that only first steps lead to running.  Yes, this website has waited months for my overthinking to reach a conclusion, but this strangely meta article is me forcing myself out of a vicious and unproductive cycle, taking the much-needed first step. 

It begs the question, why do I, why do we, get lost in a loop of overthinking?  I believe it boils down to a two-part mindset which drags great projects down before they ever begin.

I’m a planner.  When my wife and I travel, I’m the one who makes the itinerary, detailing the things we do, the places we eat, and when the bus leaves.  When we’re not travelling, I’m still making itineraries in my head for anything I can.  I sometimes call it the fiction writer in me, trying to map every detail into the big picture.   

With projects like this, which are not solely a creative endeavor but also a career pursuit, I’m thinking years down the road before I ever lift a finger.  How will this choice impact my career in 10 years?  What will this random decision mean for the future of the blog?  I trace steps from the decision at hand way into the future, as though each one is a total and irrevocable statute, as though I am not in full control of my own projects.  I preemptively blaze and follow a trail in my mind, deciding if this imagined future, apparently the only possibility, is in fact the future I want.  Spoiler alert: it’s usually not, and I end up back at the drawing board.   

Sometimes, I feel like a high school student again, thinking every decision, commitment, and relationship is final, ignoring the fact that I literally have the rest of my life ahead. 

But suppose I do get past the overthinking and start to create.  Another challenge awaits.

I’ve advised many friends that you are your own worst critic, but I rarely give that advice to myself.  When my futuristic brain catches wind that a creative project has begun, and that it could be used to make a living, I begin to change the standard to which I hold myself.  I manufacture an idea of what is “professional quality,” decide I must operate at that level right now, and shoot down my own ideas and work for falling short of an ultimately fake and flimsy standard.

By comparing my first draft to someone else’s final product, years in the making, I not only disservice the version of me that finally broke the overthinking cycle long enough to make something, I become the voice of my own disappointed authority figure, telling me I’ll never be good enough, and I keep any product of my mind and hands from seeing the light of day. 

Anyone who creates for a living, especially those who work on their own terms, started with first drafts, and those drafts met no standard except as a product created by the artist, for the artist.   

Becoming the person and creator I want to be starts with my first drafts.  It starts with the stories my friend told me to write, based on our backyard shenanigans.  It starts with the cringe-worthy newspaper I ran as a child, covering “events” within the house.  It starts with the amateur theology blog I ran in high school, with the half-baked stories I tried to write, with the writing clubs I joined. 

And it starts with this article, forcing myself out of an overthinking cycle, forcing myself to scoff at some impossible, self-made standard.  Today, my only goal is to share the events, stories, and practices of my life with those who are willing to read. 

So, if you’re here, congratulations are in order, for me, but also for yourself, because I hope in my story, you find your own breakthrough and realize what you can achieve.   

It’s my pleasure to welcome you to The Uncharted Writer.  Let’s have some fun together.