This one’s for the overthinkers (you know who you are).

A client said something to me recently that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

“I feel like I can do anything… and nothing at the same time.”

She laughed when she said it, the kind of laugh that says I know how this sounds but I’m also not joking. And she wasn’t. Because when we slowed it down, what she was describing was this: Her brain is full of ideas, possibilities, directions she could go in. She’s capable, experienced, has never quite followed a straight line, and she can see clearly that there isn’t just one path available to her. A classic case of overthinking and indecision.

Which sounds like a good problem to have, doesn’t it? All that potential. All those options!

Except it doesn’t feel like that from the inside. From the inside, it feels like opening twenty tabs and then just sitting there, not quite sure where to start, so you make a cup of tea and do something else entirely (the tea, always the tea). The possibility that was supposed to feel exciting has curdled into a low-level paralysis. And the frustrating thing is that nobody warns you this can happen. We’re so sold on the idea that options are good, more options are better, that we forget the whole thing can tip over into its own kind of stuck.

Here’s what I’ve noticed, though, after years of sitting with people in exactly this spot. When you have a lot of options, the answer isn’t to generate more of them. It isn’t to think harder, or research longer, or wait until one option finally shoulders its way to the front. The answer, annoyingly, is to choose less. To pick something, even imperfectly, even without certainty, and actually begin.

And I know that sounds simple. It isn’t, obviously.

Choosing something means letting other things go, at least for now. It means deciding that you, a person who could do many things, are going to do this one. And that’s ok. Because as long as everything stays open, everything still feels possible. You haven’t committed to anything that might not work. You haven’t had to test it in the real world, where things get messy and imperfect and occasionally a bit shit. There’s a strange safety in staying in the thinking, especially if you’re someone who’s good at it. Someone who’s spent most of their life being able to think their way through things, and for whom that has mostly worked. Until now.

The problem is that this isn’t a thinking problem. It’s a doing problem. And no amount of thinking will solve it.

What I have yet to see, is someone who thought about something carefully enough that perfect clarity arrived before they started. What I do see, over and over, is that clarity shows up after the decision. After you pick something and begin. After you see how it actually feels in practice, what works, what doesn’t, what you want to keep and what you’re quietly relieved to drop. It’s not as tidy as we’d like (and I say this as someone who once spent three months researching a decision I had basically already made, so). More trial and error than master plan. More “well, that was interesting” than “ah yes, this was obviously right all along.” But it gets you somewhere. And staying where you are, circling the same options, waiting to feel completely certain before you commit to anything, doesn’t.

So if you feel like you could do a lot of different things but aren’t quite doing any of them in the way you actually want to, it might be worth sitting with a different question. Not “What’s the best option?” but “What am I willing to choose, for now?”. Not forever, not without occasionally wondering what on earth you’re doing. But just enough to get yourself moving. Because you don’t need more options. You need a starting point. If you’ve finished your tea and you’re still not sure where to start, come and say hi. We’ll figure out your first move together.

P.S. In case you need something good to listen: Our newest In This Together podcast episode is about friendship (the wonderful bits, the sting of the ones that change, and the questionnaire I’ve made to work out exactly what tier my friends are in, which my friends are now slightly nervous about).