I recently came across a phrase that resonated with me, “I’ve realized that the only way I’ll lose is if I stop.” 

You stop because you talk yourself out of doing things you want to do, you put too much pressure on yourself, you avoid problems, you panic, or you try to control things that aren’t in your control. Or as the quote continues, “And the only thing that makes me stop is overthinking. Overthinking is the hole in my game.”

Or as I recently wrote, “Overthinking feeds hesitation. Hesitation feeds procrastination. Procrastination feeds mental health problems and poor performance. This leads to an erosion of confidence.” 

I called this cycle the trance of hesitation, and it feeds on itself. What you decide to do every day—and what you decide to think—can keep you stuck in this trance, or it can help you wake up.

Whenever you are stuck in the trance of hesitation, you feel stuck. Your options are limited. It’s only when you wake up from it that you can access the tenacity and sense of possibility you need to do the things you want to do. As John Collison writes, “As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren’t just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity everything requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.” 

Everything is made by people who have woken up from the trance of hesitation.