Why Too Much Research May Be Holding You Back
It starts with a Google search. Then another, and another. 50 clicks and webpages later, and you’ve just spent, and possibly wasted, hours researching. Sure learning can be beneficial, but is it enough to just say you’ve learned a lot?
Entrepreneur, motivational speaker and self-proclaimed 50 Billion Dollar Man Dan Peña would say, “Absolutely not,” with probably a few curse words thrown in there. In fact, Peña argues that all the research you just did is the very reason why you’re not making progress.
“Who gives a [expletive] if you’ve learned a lot in the past year? It doesn’t mean a […] thing. The question is have you done a lot, not learned a lot, okay?” said Peña in an interview on the London Real Podcast hosted by Brian Rose.
In Peña’s world, what gets measured gets accomplished. Everything else is just noise. If you don’t marry your knowledge with action, you’ve wasted your time. Peña has a strict no-hesitation policy and encourages his mentees and others to learn from experience rather than books.
“I don’t like the people that read all the books and write all the books… it’s procrastination. It’s an excuse not to pull the trigger,” said Peña.
How many times have you set a goal, learned all about the topic, and never followed through?
Peña may have an abrasive way of spreading a message, but he does make a valid point. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s guilty of this. I see this all the time with fitness goals. We make it our mission to lose weight, get fit, eat healthier, etc.
We read testimonials of people who’ve changed their lives by the paleo diet, veganism, CrossFit, distance running, high intensity interval training, and the list goes on. A few (or many) searches later and our brains suffer an overload. There’s too much information, too many schools of thought, all of which seem to contradict the others.
Why does every decision we make need to be so calculated?
Whether the goal is to get fit, save money, drink less or volunteer more, “googling” for hours won’t get you very far.
Create your own path and embrace all the speed bumps that come along with it. You may not know all the buzzwords, lingo, and science behind everything, but at the end of the day you can honestly say that you’ve taken a measurable step toward your goals.
So, in the eloquent words of Dan Peña, pull the [expletive] trigger, you [expletive] [expletive]!
Thanks for reading! :)
Thanks for reading! :)
Thanks for reading! :)