The Tragedy of Satisfaction Before Action
What happens when we love the idea too much?
Have you ever had a great idea about how you can improve on something and just pat yourself on the back for being so brilliant?
This happens to me all the time when I innovate (in my head) a new process or habit for self-improvement, a new idea for another income stream, or a new perspective on…life. I go through the ideation process, then step back and marvel at my masterpiece. Then I just walk away from it before doing anything else with it! I have even caught myself thinking “that was so fun, great job buddy! We should implement this strategy/idea…but I'm [insert excuse/distraction here].” Even for this post, I came up with the idea for it, then thought “I haven't listened to music in a while, plus I'm hungry, also I have a few texts that I need to respond to, but man this would be a great topic for a post!” And then I caught myself and forced myself to start writing.
I know what you're thinking: “Akeel not all of us are as distracted by shiny objects as you are," and you're right! But I'm willing to bet that my short attention span and I aren't the only ones who suffer from this tragedy of Satisfaction before Action. The trap of being so satisfied with the insight or the idea of something new or exciting that the desire to act on it becomes zero! 1
Now I agree that some ideas are best left in the realm of imagination (honestly, nobody ever needed maple bacon ice cream), when this happens to great ideas about improving client experience, streamlining a cumbersome SOP, or building your personal brand through regular content posts (*cough cough*), the realm of reality would be much better off by having them. And it's not just our individual realities--we have no idea how much impact a good idea put into action can make.
To be honest, I'm not sure yet how to combat this tragedy, but when I've got something, I'll be sure to share it here (if there's no follow-up, you know why😅). I hope you'll share your insights in the comments as well! We're all on this journey of Leadership In The Making together. Till next time!
This episode on Andrew Huberman’s Huberman Lab podcast talks about dopamine and covers what I think explains this phenomenon better than I could hope to explain it