The Secret to Stop Chasing Shiny Objects, Focus on What Matters, and Finally Finish What You Start
Is this you?
You start something, then see something else that catches your attention.
Suddenly the first thing doesn’t seem as important anymore.
Then another idea comes along.
And another.
Before you know it, you have a head full of ideas, a half-dozen unfinished projects, and very little to show for any of them.
If so, you’re dealing with what I call an overactive want (aka shiny object syndrome).
In today’s post, I’m going to talk about what it is, how it’s a silent killer of dreams, and ways to control the triggers that fuel it.
What is an Overactive Want (Or Shiny Object Syndrome)?
This is where the brain creates all sorts of desires all of the time.
You see something, and you want it. You hear about something, and you want that too.
Someone tells you about something they did, and suddenly you want to do that too.
You see someone else’s life and wonder if you should pursue that life instead.
Most of the time, you don’t have to see or hear anything.
A thought appears, and a want comes with it, like:
- I should learn the guitar
- No, I should start running
- Maybe I should start a YouTube channel
Something shiny catches your attention, and for a moment it becomes the most interesting thing in the world.
Then something else becomes the most interesting thing.
You don’t just want everything, you want to become everything
You want to become:
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An entrepreneur and an artist
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A writer and an athlete
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A traveler and a parent
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And a scholar and an adventurer
Overactive Wants | Shiny Object Syndrome Examples
Meet Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
He had ideas for poetry, philosophy, politics, theology, criticism, lectures, journalism and more.
He could become intensely absorbed in a new intellectual pursuit, but struggled to sustain attention and complete projects.
His famous poem Kubla Khan is itself a great example, as he left it unfinished.
In fact, much of his literary career was marked by unfinished projects and unrealized ambitions.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge dreamed on a wide scale
He would become intensely excited by a new idea, pursue it with enormous energy, and then find himself drawn toward another.
There was always another subject to investigate, book to read, project to begin, and question to answer.
This is part of what made Samuel brilliant.
Unfortunately, those dreams kept him from finishing anything
He produced relatively little finished poetry compared with the huge amount of thought, conversation, and intellectual ambition he had.
Coleridge’s friend and fellow poet, William Wordsworth, went on to produce a substantial body of finished work.
While he left behind some brilliant fragments, unfinished projects, and the sense of a mind that continually saw one more possibility just beyond the one in front of him.
Overactive Wants | Shiny Object Syndrome Problems
It’s not hard to see how overactive wants can lead to procrastination and self-sabotage.
Before you can make progress with one desire, another pulls you in a different direction.
You haven’t finished the book, but want to start the business.
You haven’t started the business, but want to travel.
So you procrastinate on the book to start the business, or you sabotage the business to pursue travel.
You can spend your entire life moving from one desire to another, without ever giving any one of them enough time to become real.
How to Overcome Procrastination and Self-Sabotage from Overactive Wants
So, how do you stop an overactive want from pulling you in every direction?
You can’t stop your brain from creating wants. If that were the case, there would be no addictions, cravings, temptations, or binge-watching and doomscrolling.
However, you can control what you do with them.
Here are three simple things you can do to take back control.
1. Pick 1 Want
With an overactive want, it really helps to ground and contain it. Otherwise, it will go in all directions and you won’t be able to focus on any one.
The best way to do that is to pick one want and cut out the rest.
No matter what other wants your brain is creating, don’t think about, worry about, or consider them until the first is finished or completed.
That means, no matter how boring the want you pick becomes, or how many other wants are calling to you, stick with it before starting another.
2. Remove the Triggers
Sticking with one want isn’t always easy.
That’s because we don’t necessarily pick or choose our wants. They get triggered and stimulated, and for a person with an overactive mechanism, their wants are being triggered or stimulated all of the time.
In these instances, it helps to take it one step further and cut out as many triggers and stimuli as possible, and keep what will allow them to get work done.
Unfortunately, this involves cutting out television, media, and even cutting out people because seeing what others are doing or having can stimulate jealousy and wanting to do or have what they have.
This really hits home for me
That's because most of my life, I had an overactive wanting mechanism.
It’s the reason I’ve:
- Written 12+ books
- Traveled to 100+ countries
- And done all sorts of activities like skydiving, scuba diving, snowboarding, rock climbing, dancing, yoga, and so much more.
My brain was stimulated by all the different things to do
- If I saw a nice car, I wanted it
- The latest gadget came out, and I wanted that too
- Most anything I saw on television, I wanted as well
These wants were overpowering and consumed my awareness so much that I’d forget about other wants I was working on or I’d lose interest in them.
The experience was so unpleasant, it would tighten my muscles and put my head in a knot.
Just reading personal development made my mind go in all sorts of directions.
I had to find a way to contain the stimuli
So, I did exactly as I suggested. I stopped watching television and sports, using social media and YouTube, and even reading personal development.
I went as far as to cut out people and essentially created a bubble for myself that contained as much distracting stimuli as possible.
I know this sounds extreme, but I personally believe for a person with an overactive wanting mechanism, this may not just be the best solution, but the only solution.
That’s because our wants are unruly. Once they get triggered, it’s difficult to release them. Once they get triggered, it’s difficult to focus on anything else.
3. Say "No" More than "Yes"
If removing the triggers is out of the question, then we have to accept the world we live in.
We have more options than any generation before us. More things to buy, more places to go, and more skills to learn.
And the problem isn’t simply that we have too many options, our options have options.
So one of the most important skills for a person with an overactive want is learning to say no more than yes. In fact, I would say nine “no” for every “yes,” and even that is being conservative.
This doesn’t mean nine things out of ten are bad ideas. Quite the opposite. Many of the things we say no to will be good ideas.
That’s what makes saying ‘no’ so difficult. You aren’t choosing between a good idea and a bad idea, but between a good idea and another good idea.
Every "yes" has a cost!
- When you say yes to learning another skill, you’re saying no to the time you could have spent mastering the one you’re already learning.
- When you say yes to another project, you’re saying no to finishing the project in front of you.
- When you say yes to another opportunity, you’re saying no to the opportunity to go deeper into the one you’ve already chosen.
Conclusion
Now you know how to overcome procrastination and self-sabotage from an overactive wanting mechanism.
The solution is to pick one want, remove the triggers that create new ones, and learn to say no more often than yes.
Your brain will never stop creating new wants. You will always have more things you want to do than you have time to do.
The goal isn’t to get rid of your wants, but to stop letting every new want pull you away from what matters.
Learn to control what gets your attention, and you’ll have a much better chance of finishing what you start.
This guide just scratches the surface
The topic of resistance goes much deeper.
There is much more to why you do what you do.
And why you can’t get yourself to do what you truly want and desire in life.
Click the video below to go deeper into how to stop self-sabotaging and procrastinating once and for all!
