Your brain wants you to go for it. But maybe… don’t.

I have a problem with starting. I don’t mean that I can’t get started. I mean starting too quickly and starting too much. This can produce small problems like buying software or gadgets I barely use. Or it can produce big problems like unfinished projects or worst of all, projects that are way more crazy-making than they should have been. 

And you’ve got the same problem. Why do I know this? Because what I’m talking about is a human bias called the action bias. The purpose of the brain isn’t just to think thoughts. Its purpose is to make things happen. Your brain wants you to do it: set that goal, buy that course, start that project. But it’s not so good at helping you achieve that goal, learn that material, or finish that project. 

The action bias tricks you into thinking you’re getting something done. But all you’ve really done is begin… and that’s the easy part. Impulsive choices like these will waste your time and resources. If you fall prey to the action bias frequently enough, and you’ll find yourself demoralized and doubting you can achieve much of anything.

I got burnt by the action bias in an unusually epic way. In 2012, I was finishing the original Everything is a Remix series, which was a big success. I was hot and I wanted to capitalize. I wanted to launch something and I wanted to do it fast. I launched a KickStarter for a new series, This is Not a Conspiracy Theory. I had almost no clue what it was or what I was going to deliver or how long it would take or how much it would all cost . (How many successful KickStarters have ultimately cost the creator money? I’m guessing plenty.)

This is Not a Conspiracy Theory worked out. I made the thing I wanted to make, I got to the place I wanted to go. But it took eight years and the process was far more painful than it needed to be. The premature launch took a slow project and made it even slower because I wasted time wracking my brains trying to solve problems that couldn’t be solved. If I’d slowed down and thought things through a bit more, I could have saved myself substantial time and a lot of misery.

It often requires more energy and more discipline to not act. To wait, think things through and then act is actually harder. It’s way easier to just let it rip and make something—anything—happen. 

By slowing down, making sure we want to make the move we’re making and figuring out how to do it the best way we know how, we’re setting the stage for a more efficient and less painful project.

However, this problem is a shadow of what it once was for me. The big thing that has helped has been awareness. My snap decisions bounced back badly enough times that I got wise. I didn’t know anything about the action bias, I just learned through mistakes.

I learned to be slow down on big decisions first. But small decisions matter too, they add up. Something I’ve been doing in recent years is creating these little holds for these impulses. Want to buy something? I put it in a hold list and revisit again when my mood is more moderate. Then I revisit it again when I think. Still want it? Okay, it’s safe to purchase. Most things I want to buy do not make it through this gauntlet.

The practice of mindfulness helps with this, as well as countless other personal issues. 

But the action bias is one of those things that you never banish. It’ll always come with inventive new ways to trick you. But I’ve got decent defense now.