Research Is Killing You

If you are anything like me, the first thing you do when a problem arises is research. Your parents are nagging you to start finding your passions and finding ways to earn money? Research. Want to make homemade peanut butter? Research. Have the sudden urge to start a blog? Research. Luckily for us, there is tons of amazing content out there, from Youtube videos to blogs to podcasts to photographs, you name it. Unluckily for us, it’s easy to fall into the trap of going on endless, targetless research sprees in attempt to find EXACTLY what you’re looking for, mindlessly going from blog to blog, video to video. What do we get out of it? Next to nothing.

You can research all day on writing novels: how to make your characters relatable, how to find your ‘voice’, how to write action scenes, the list goes on. The easy thing to do? Lie to yourself and tell yourself that it’s a good thing that you’re sitting here reading everything you can on novels, and continue doing it because the thought of actually starting a novel is intimidating. Sadly, the best thing to do is not always the easiest, and you’re technically not doing anything until you type those first few paragraphs to get a feel for the characters and setting.

So what do you do when you’re in the middle of one of these Google deep dives? STOP. Stop researching, stop thinking, and just do it. Of course, some things require a bit of research, you can’t just decide one day that you’re going to bake a cake, but not have a recipe. Get the bare minimum of what you need to know before you start, and just do it. Sure you will make mistakes along the way, but who doesn’t? People who are able to say they never make mistakes are people who don’t take risks and do things to become better people. We are constantly changing and the only way to continue that flow is to do things.

So if you happened to find this post during a un needed research session, stop, take a deep breath, and just do it. Or if you don’t take my advice, at least come to terms with the fact that you will never get this thing done. Thank you for reading and I hope to see you in my next post.