You can't think your way out of fear.

This seems counterintuitive, I know.

After all, we use our brains to problem solve. So, we believe that …

… If we just do enough thinking, we’ll be able to figure out a plan. And, a backup plan. AND, a backup to the backup plan.

… If we just keep thinking about it, we’ll understand what we're afraid of or why we're afraid, and that’ll allow us to move forward.

But in practice, it turns out not to be true.

Why?

Blame the story telling machine called the human brain. The good thing about thinking is it helps generate ideas. The bad thing about thinking ... well, yeah, same deal. When we keep thinking and analyzing, we end up with a lot more raw material in our brains for stories to be constructed with.

Remember: humans are wired for survival, and that means there are a lot of cases where we are biased towards assuming negatives. What happens when we focus there? Well, it’s kind of like the writing of author Stephen King – everything that comes out is dark and scary.

Who’d want to face stories like that? 

Not me. Probably not you.

So, what happens? Well, we don’t take action.

But, we keep thinking...

...and analyzing...

...and writing stories in our heads.

The answer is, as Andrew Carnegie said, to get busy.

However, you don’t have to get busy in a big way. Start small. As small as you need to so that you can actually take action.

Then, slowly but surely, go bigger. Iterate.

Watch what happens when you take action in the face of those stories in your head. The power of action is that it gives us hard experiential data, which is one thing that can override the emotional brain's story-telling machine.

So, what's a small action you can take to get moving?