Why over analysis can kill your business
Analysis. It’s a good thing, right??
I’m very good at analysis, maybe too good sometimes. It’s what makes me good with numbers and figuring things out. I’ve proudly sold this fact about myself in job interviews. Who doesn’t want to hire someone into finance who’s good at analyzing information? But when I started my business, I quickly realized that there is a difference between being good at analyzing a situation and overanalyzing.
When I decided to leave my corporate job and start my own business, I had confidence that with being in corporate finance roles for over 14 years, that I’d have no trouble transitioning into working for myself full time. I’d learned a ton about business in my journey and knew I could use that background to start a business.
Analysis, what?
As I stepped into entrepreneurship, I quickly became acquainted with analysis paralysis. I didn’t realize at first what was happening but looking back it’s very clear. I found myself researching marketing and sales strategies, software, coaches. You name it, I was researching and analyzing to figure out the best way to sell my services.
I followed coaches, signed up for courses (many that I never finished), and quickly fell into the black hole of researching everything I could only to be left completely overwhelmed. So, what did I do? I just stopped trying to figure it all out and was stuck. I didn’t want to make decisions about important things for fear that I’d choose the wrong option.
What was happening here? It took me a few months of this cycle to realize that my over-analysis of every business decision I was trying to make was causing me to be overwhelmed. And when I’m overwhelmed, I just shut down. When I’m overwhelmed, I’m very good at avoidance.
Obviously, not making decisions wasn’t going to get me anywhere though. I’m the owner of my business. To be successful, I needed to face things head-on. I needed to quickly make decisions and stop avoiding what felt uncomfortable (fear of choosing wrong or committing to something). By letting these fears consume me and impact my ability to make decisions, I was slowing down my progress and slowing down my business growth. And this was impacting the bottom line.
I knew I needed to do something different to get past this or I’d be back in the 9 – 5 in no time because my business just wouldn’t work. So, I started to pay attention so I could see when I got into these cycles of overanalyzing and in the process overwhelming myself. This was the first step I had to take. I needed to recognize that I wasn’t making progress because I was overanalyzing a decision.
Once I was able to recognize what was happening, I had to take steps to stop analyzing everything 200 different ways.
I didn’t need to follow every coach out there or sign up for all the free courses and bootcamps to try to find the best method. I needed to understand what works for me and implement it. No second-guessing or feeling like I made the wrong choice.
I also realized not every decision is permanent. What if I found later that whatever I’d chosen wasn’t working for me? There’s nothing to say that I couldn’t change it. I remind myself of this quite a bit when I’m starting to spin my wheels in over-analysis mode.
I’ve also found that if a decision or process is complex, breaking it into smaller pieces is less intimidating. I can then focus on each piece or two separately, ignoring all of the other things, until I complete what I’m working on. Then I move onto the next part.
Getting over analysis paralysis is a work in progress for me.
My natural tendency is to research and research before doing something. And quickly finding myself not getting anything done because I’m stuck. But being aware that I can naturally get hung up on something and not take any action helps me to keep moving.
I’m not saying it is easy. I’m content to sit and research something all day to avoid deciding on something. But I remind myself that even though I love to research, the feeling that comes from making a decision and accomplishing something on my to-do list is pretty spectacular.
What about you? Do you find yourself overanalyzing everything? I’d love to hear tips and tricks you use to keep moving and not let the over-analysis slow you down.
