Overthinking will kill (even your best) ideas
But only if you let it happen
An idea is a fragile thing.
It rarely arrives fully formed.
It’s more like a seed, Small, delicate and uncertain.
Ideas are messy.
They grow underground, out of sight.
Roots push down through the soil.
Nothing is stable yet.
But the temptation is to over-tend.
To hover.
To second-guess.
To doubt.
“Is this good enough?”
“Will people care?”
“Is someone else already doing this?”
Often, our idea dies, not because it wasn’t worthy, but because it never had a chance to breathe.
There’s a paradox at the heart of every creative journey:
You care.
You want the work to be good — even great.
You refine, tweak, shape, and that’s part of the creative process.
But there’s a point where the cycle flips, and the same care and attention that made it better begins to undo it.
Suddenly, you’re not polishing, you’re dismantling.
You add complexity until the whole thing collapses.
You hold so tightly to the idea that you suffocate it.
It’s like the Midas touch in reverse. Instead of everything you touch turning to gold, overthinking takes everything golden — and turns it into dust.
What started with the shining gleam of inspiration becomes brittle, overworked, crumbling in your hands.
I’ve seen it happen and I’ve done it myself.
So how do we care without crushing the thing we care about?
The truth is, every meaningful idea began in an uncertain place.
Every brand, every project, every beautiful piece of work you admire — none of them arrived polished.
They started faint.
Rough around the edges.
Vulnerable.
Make space for your idea.
Let it be messy.
Trust it, trust yourself, trust that your own practice will reveal your most true voice, trust that your audience will show up when the time it's right.
And over time the roots of your idea will deepen, the shape of it will become clearer, and it will begin to grow.
Here’s something that helps:
Before you edit, before you compare, before you overthink — get a messy, rough draft out of your head and into the light.
Let the messy draft arrive first.
Clarity arrives after.
Feeling stuck? Try hitting publish (before you feel ready)
Whether you’re building a website, drafting your first Substack post, shaping a brand, or working on a book — there’s usually a moment when it all starts to feel a bit heavy.
You tweak, hesitate & re-read your draft so many times the words start to blur together.
But here’s something I keep learning (and forgetting, and relearning):
Clarity doesn’t always come before you share. Sometimes it arrives because you did.
There’s a strange kind of magic in the “publish / send” button. Or the moment you show your messy draft to a friend.
It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be out of your head.
Because when something sits in your drafts folder for too long, it gets tangled in fear, self-doubt, and overthinking. You lose sight of how it actually feels. You start editing it for an imaginary super-critical audience that you can never satisfy.
But once it’s out there, the draft becomes something real. It gains a shape. You gain perspective. And what felt stuck in your mind starts to move.
When you see your idea on the other side of fear, you stop fussing and start understanding. You start to see it — what it wants to be. What’s working. What isn’t. What it might grow into.
Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your idea is let it breathe in public.
And no, this doesn’t mean blasting it out to the world (though it could mean that). “Publishing” might just mean sharing it with a colleague or small test group. Or posting your first version, knowing you can return later with more clarity.
In truth, most people won’t even notice when you come back and revise.
But before you come back to start making changes: stop for a moment & ask yourself:
Am I editing from a place of clarity — or fear?
Am I polishing to bring something forward — or to keep it hidden?
Am I making it better, or am I being overly critical?
Am I supporting it — or crushing it?
If the answer feels murky, take a break. Come back when you have something constructive to add, not just something anxious to fix.
Because your idea doesn’t care about being perfect.
It just wants space to be.
Reflection:
Where are you overthinking today?
What’s the one seed you’ve been afraid to plant?