Act fast, then take the time to reflect
Here's one incredibly backward thing I believe most of us do: overthinking to find the perfect solution, to make the ideal move. And when we fail, we just shrug, blaming it on the first thing that pleases our ego, and then hurrying to move on.
We're slow to take action, and quick to move on.
When it makes a lot more sense to do the opposite: be quick to take action, and then pause and take the time to reflect and think critically.
Don't spend ages thinking hard, then jump and pray (that you nailed it perfectly on the first try). Overthinking kills momentum. Move quick and then assess. Act, then take the time to reflect. Learn, grow, and repeat.
In essence, it's not just the fear of failure that hinders us, but also the failure to stop right after it, for a moment, to reflect and think critically.
The two factors impairing our learning.
Trying a hundred times at random without reflecting is playing lottery. But it's barely better than overthinking before taking a leap of blind faith.
You can't know beforehand what's going to be the perfect move. Yet it's what we strive to do. When you don't know have any idea of what to do next, you try hard to figure out in your head what's the best move. But it's only after taking action that you'll have feedback to reflect on and gain experience. So delaying any action is counter-effective. The faster you can get more info and understand by experience, the faster you can reflect on the process and iterate.
This bias is even stronger in creative endeavours. We try to come up with the perfect song, words, painting, drawing, creation, invention, right at the onset. The perfect way to stifle creativity. The opposite is exactly how to spark the flame. To just start doodling. Sometimes it’s just about goofin’ around. Trying out without any grand scheme or even judging. Then, once you've started something, sometimes you can take a step back and look at what you did, and think about improving. You can only connect the dots from afar
Not reflecting can lead to reinforcing mistake-making behaviour
It is crucial to reflect on past actions, especially mistakes. The key to making progress is to understand your mistakes and not repeat it. But maybe more importantly, not reflecting and thus repeating mistakes has the even worse effect of reinforcing the bad patterns!
This may be why so many times we tend to repeat the same mistakes again and again. It's not because we're stupid, but the more we do something the more we get into the habit of doing it (reinforcement of neural pathways).
This is why it's so important to avoid repeating mistakes and reflect, so you can avoid The Spiral of Ineffectiveness