HOW TO BEAT WRITER'S BLOCK AS AN OVERTHINKER
I'm tired of hearing the typical, shallow advice "Just publish it!" Here is a better way to think about it.
What’s holding me back from creating content is overthinking, also known as “paralysis by analysis”.
If you search online, you'll find many articles on the fear of publishing and ways to mitigate that feeling.
I’ve seen advice like these:
“The fear never goes away, so get used to it.”
“Your content is not as embarrassing as you think.”
“If it’s bad, no one will pay attention to it anyway, so just publish it.”
“Don’t listen to the haters.”
But none of these is very helpful for me. I don’t care about haters, and I am not embarrassed. The word “fear” is an oversimplification, and my reason for the delayed publishing schedule cannot be reduced to just one word.
I tend to delay publishing or take more time to create content if my idea or thesis is incomplete, or the thought processes that make up the idea are not well-integrated.
One might say it’s “perfectionism,” but once again, it's not just that. “Perfectionism” is a shorthand for describing the inability to create or publish because of amorphous ideals one may hold, which can never be realistically achieved.
In my case, I know clearly where the hole in my argument is. I’m delaying publishing because I’m looking for the counterargument to the counterargument to my thesis. I'm also thinking of a way to present my idea in a way that would distract and prevent readers from thinking of rebuttals in the first place.
For example, I was working on a piece of content, which argues that learning a language is like learning a musical instrument.
From what I've seen, this analogy helps language learners put things into perspective and gets them to practice their target language methodically with less stress.
As I was refining my idea and describing examples to support it, I also came up with counterarguments to my original thesis and reasons why this analogy does not work. So I’m being my own critic.
Publishing a piece of content with a caveat or presenting both views and weighing them equally won't make the content very compelling.
So it's not fear of embarrassment or perfectionism that is holding back an overthinker, like myself, from creating content.
The more accurate descriptions would be:
Not having access to, or not being aware of, the resources and anecdotes that might help fill the gaps in knowledge
Refusing to convince oneself and others with an ill-formed, half-baked opinion
Knowing that I’m just not knowledgeable enough and not ready to make a case on that topic
One way to get over this overthinker's paralysis is to state that the opinion is personal with an acknowledgment that some may hold opposite views. It's not my favorite way to qualify a piece of content, but at least it should be enough to give overthinkers permission to publish their content.
So there it is. You might not fully agree, or you might articulate some of these points better than I can. Anyway, this line of thinking works for me and gets me to publish content, like this one. What do you think?