Think Less. Decide More

Have you ever searched for a group, a scene, a spark, only to find that it doesn’t exist, before collapsing into another Netflix stupor, half-watching people live a fantasy life?

I have.

We sit around waiting for opportunities to appear. They don’t. And instead of creating the thing we need (the run club, the dinner party, the “men’s meetup,” the book club with bad wine and worse takes), we wait. Then we complain that we feel disconnected.

It’s a sweeping statement to say that many of us are frustrated by the lack of community. The numbers don’t lie, though. UK stats show that the number of people identifying as “often or always lonely” rose by 30% between 2020 (COVID) and 2022 (not-COVID). Things have not returned to the way they were before the event.

We might long for the days when the pub was cheap, religion wasn’t niche, and side-hustles were a curiosity rather than a requirement. But the world’s changed. The route forward lies in participation, not nostalgia.

Performing Without the ‘Performance’

What would you do if you weren’t trying to impress anyone? 

Strip away the prestige, the optics and what your mates think.

What would you wear?
How would you train?
Who would you talk to?
Who would you cut off?
Would you finally message the person you’ve been ghost-stalking for six months?
Would you say “F it” and start your weird little pottery club?

Would you become… yourself?

Too many of us are tired. Not from overwork, but because we’re constantly negotiating with ourselves. We’ve chosen “peace” over friction, which typically means avoiding the discomfort that actually makes us feel alive.

Being embedded in a social circle means dealing with alternative views, clashes and challenges. But isolation leads to stagnation. Spending all our time alone calcifies parts of our personality. And spending all our time around others leaves no room for deeper personal work.

We complain about the dearth of community without lifting a single finger to build it. Beat ourselves up for not doing more, and spend more time self-flagellating than on the tasks that would propel us forward. We sketch out ideas, reject them for being “too idealistic,” spin our wheels for months (or years), and end up right back where we started, with an inbox full of half-done ideas.

Perfectionism is poison. It’s fear with a large arm-span, a rational but deeply flawed silhouette of self-preservation.

So again:

What would you do if you weren’t trying to impress anyone?

The Neuroscience of Not Trying

You know how hard it is to build a habit. You know how easy it is to break one. Every time you say, “I’ll try tomorrow,” you affirm to your brain that stasis is preferable to change.

Again, we’ve outlined this before. After years of weekly newsletters, we’re building on established knowledge: neural pathways are reinforced by repetition (myelination). Intention means bugger all.

The more often we take the passive option (typically to scroll or sulk), the stronger we make the signal we're sending to our brain that it’s the correct choice. Choosing the path of least resistance, over friction, increases the likelihood we'll be reluctant in the future.

One scientifically suggested principle for this is known as ego depletion. Essentially, it states that self-control is finite. Just as we can’t burpee indefinitely, we also can’t just will ourselves to do whatever, without periods of recuperation. 

Think of it as if you have a bank account of effort each day. Each decision and task withdraws a little more from the balance. We can top it up with recovery (and ZAAG accrues hefty compound interest), but it’s not infinite.

You’ve been bashed over the head with the idea of burnout, so we needn’t retread those boards. But the more we overthink and don’t act, the more we waste that valuable balance on maybes rather than certainties.

As your psychological accountant in this matter, if any of this is resonating with you, you need to be smarter with your investment strategy.

Are You Busy, or Just Insecure?

Let’s go deeper. We spoke last week of life without direction. To gratuitously quote ourselves,

When we don’t identify success for ourselves, we’re swept up in the gales made by the winds of other people’s wings.

Are you making progress toward something real, or just collecting “productive” actions to quieten the inner critic?

We love “busy” work. Messing with Teams or Slack to make it look like we’re busy when we’re not. Posting online to project capacity when we’re at our least productive. Staying in the gym for longer than needed to mask the fact that we don’t know what to do when we get home. 

Busy-work is an illusion. Another clever trick we play on ourselves to evade the evidence that we’re not really working towards anything in particular.

Yes, imagining your Best Possible Self can help—but often it’s overwhelming. Instead, imagine your best possible week.

High performance doesn’t emerge from doing what we feel like. It stems from the occasional bit of mundane work that projects forward and makes the most of the time we have. No self-help book knows Dianne has football practice on Tuesday. No podcaster knows you visit your dad in hospital each week. Their advice is generalised for a mass audience.

What schedule, including stuff that's fun with no strings attached, could you manage for the next week? Make it enjoyable, fortifying and realistic.

A seven-day stretch with a few wins, maybe a beer(!), a long run, some good work, a nap, reading 100 pages, hitting 50,000 steps. That’s tangible. That’s testable. You can live it. Tweak it. Repeat it. Iterate until it fits.

The Real Work Before/After “Work”

The actions that define your self-esteem don’t happen at your job. They happen in the margins when nobody’s watching. The hours when you have permission to do whatever you want.

How often do you pick the easiest route?

The more connected we feel, the happier we are.

Every “yes” is a potential domino that leads God knows where.
Every “no” is more of the same.

Stop under-deciding, and the overthinking will diminish in kind.

Try more. Make more. Share more. Do more.

Even if it’s shit. Especially if it’s shit.

Because, for better or worse, what you repeat, you become.