when thinking replaces doing

why introspection isn’t always progress.

The fear of failure and the performance of false perfectionism are what keep us bound to restraints that prevent us from rising or reaching our dreams.

image from Pinterest.

At the moment, I’m reading a book about creative blocks and how to overcome them — or, more than that, how to take action. I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t pick up anything labelled “self-help” again, but here I am. That promise was born out of the chaos that was last year. I spent countless hours consuming content that supposedly helps us think beyond ourselves, learn from other people’s experiences, extract something meaningful. The problem is that I took it too far.

I spent my days watching productivity vlogs, motivational YouTubers, choosing the next personal development book — one I would rarely make it halfway through — and, above all, refusing to look inward and understand what I actually needed as an individual. I was constantly looking for answers outside, when the work was always internal.

There is no universal formula for healing. Each of us is an individual, with our own tastes, experiences, and traumas — just like plants, which are not all watered in the same way.

I believe many of these videos contain educational, even transformative content when consumed as additional tools. The problem begins when they are consumed from a place of desperation: when we want to fix our lives without being willing to go through the work it requires. Behind fifteen minutes of video are often years of inner struggle, identity crises, and failed attempts. And still, it’s easy for people like me — who live closely with their own self-sabotage — to feel inspired for a few minutes and then, shortly after, miserable. Miserable over everything we haven’t done, everything we could be doing, everything we think we should have already done.

What was meant to be a moment of rest quickly turns into hours of self-pity, while the inner voice makes a point of listing, one by one, all the reasons why I’m not where I want to be. And even if I were there, I know I would find another reason to feel dissatisfied.

Because the real problem lives in the mind. When we spend our days mentally overloaded and in constant pursuit of instant gratification, it’s natural to look for quick solutions. It’s almost like quitting the race while still standing at the starting line, once we realize that, in fact, we’re going to have to run. That’s why, sometime last year, I drastically reduced my consumption of content tied to these themes.

Still, today this book arrived in the mail. It was ordered by my mother’s boyfriend. I remember finding the synopsis interesting, but between finding something interesting and actually picking it up there’s a long distance. When the book arrived, he handed it to me, and in that moment I decided to pause my current reading.

Today I woke up with the feeling that the day would be different. And I had concrete proof of that: my daughter took her first independent steps. My state of mind was calm. I didn’t feel that insatiable need to escape. So I accepted the challenge.

I’m already almost halfway through, and everything is making an uncomfortable amount of sense. The book is divided into three parts, the first dedicated to self-sabotage — what the author calls Resistance. It touches every area of our lives that can be affected by it. So far, every page has unsettled me in some way. Steven Pressfield managed to name my greatest ghost and, for the first time, I was able to see self-sabotage as something external to me: something that affects me, but does not define me.

“I have nothing against true healing. We all need it. But it has nothing to do with doing our work. Resistance loves ‘healing.’ The more energy we spend digging into the injustices of our personal lives, the less energy we have to do our work.”

This quote stayed with me.

I recognize that I often spend too much time thinking about my problems — their origins, their consequences — when I could be channeling that energy into something tangible. We need to retrain the brain to accept that problems exist without immediately slipping into survival mode. Not everything requires reopening past wounds in order for us to feel healed.

There will always be another level, an old problem reactivated by a present event, an emotion that resurfaces without warning. But spending days, weeks, or months stuck there comes at a cost. Sometimes we forget the most basic things: brushing our teeth, doing the dishes, replying to a message that’s been sitting unopened.

I retreat into my own head so often that I lose sight of what exists outside of it — beyond me, my ideas, my fears. And I’m tired of that.

So I followed the author’s suggestion and sat down in front of the computer, forcing myself to write. No intended impact. No perfectionism. Just writing. For the first few minutes, I stared at the blank screen, feeling ridiculous for having nothing to say. After deleting and rewriting a few sentences, something unlocked. My hands started moving faster. The delete key was pressed less often. And, almost without realizing how, I wrote something that held together.

Today, I wrote. Not because I was inspired, but because I didn’t run away from what my soul yearns for.

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