Why Searching For Answers Is Keeping You Stuck - The Blissful Mind (2024)

• Mindset

• By Catherine Beard
• September 4, 2019
• 25 Comments

Have you ever avoided doing something because you didn’t know the right way to do it? Have you also spent an entire week researching ways to do something instead of getting started?

I was taking a walk the other day, and I thought to myself how hard it can be to get started on something because I want it to be perfect the first time.

We all want to get things “right”, but why is that so important? Is it because we’re afraid of failure or embarrassing ourselves? Because we don’t want to waste our time?

When we feel as if we need to do things the “right” way, we tend to look for advice from other people. What starts out as a quick search can soon turn into an obsession that wastes our time before we’ve even started.

In this post, I’m sharing why it’s time to stop searching for answers instead of doing the work. I hope this post helps you realize what you already know so you can learn to rely on your own guidance.

The Issue With Searching for Answers

If you’ve been staying up late at night searching for answers to your problems, or you’ve been asking everyone you know for advice, you might be dealing with a limiting belief.

Constant searching is a sign that you have a limiting belief. This belief tries to convince you that you can’t make choices or decisions by yourself.

Since starting The Blissful Mind back in 2014, I’ve spent hours researching the best methods for building an email list, launching a product, writing better blog posts, etc. I’ve also spent A LOT of money on courses, programs, and memberships. Many of them legitimately helped me, but some simply weren’t worth the money.

The posts and programs that didn’t help were the ones I found because I was searching for answers. And they didn’t help because I already knew what I needed to do. I was just avoiding doing the work because I didn’t believe in my ideas. I wanted an easy way out.

Searching for answers is usually an avoidance tactic because we don’t want to take responsibility for our lives. We want others to figure things out for us.

Related Post: How To Stop Talking Yourself Out of Things

Why You Feel Stuck

Of course, there can be merit in following other people’s advice. For example, if they can help you avoid struggles they went through or cut the time it takes to do something in half.

But when we force answers to come in an attempt to do things the “right” way, we are often met with disappointment. Here’s where that disappointment comes from:

Misalignment

You might feel disappointed when the advice someone offers you isn’t in alignment with what you would do. You may admire their success and want to follow in their footsteps, but their methods might not align with your values or priorities. When that happens, it’s easy to feel like you’re not good enough or capable of being successful yourself.

Unqualified advice

Plenty of people are there to offer you advice on what they would do, but that doesn’t mean it’s what you would do. When it comes to taking someone else’s advice, you have to consider whether they’ve been through what you’re dealing with. For example, if you’re struggling to grow your blog, taking advice from someone who knows nothing about it won’t get you too far.

Overwhelm

Trying to force answers to come can lead to more frustration and confusion than when you started. Maybe you’ve been trying to piece together random advice from multiple sources, or you’ve taken so many notes that your brain feels like it might explode. When you overwhelm yourself, it only pushes you further away from the answers you’re trying to find. Your motivation starts to disappear because you don’t know where to start.

Related Post: How To Overcome Your Mindset Blocks

How To Create Your Own Answers

Spending all your time searching for answers? Think about what you would do if you couldn’t get the answers from anyone else.

What would be your plan of attack if all you could rely on was your own ideas?

Your options are to:

1. Quiet outside noise and listen to what comes to you
2. Start taking action and figure it out as you go

Okay, but what if I start following my own advice and end up making a huge mistake? We all mess up and do stupid things. Most of the time, this happens because we do the opposite of what our intuition tells us to do.

Should you stop taking advice from others completely? No. There are people out there who are incredibly wise and can help you get ahead in life. You can listen to others, but tweak their advice to make it work for you.

For example, you’re reading this blog post where I’m giving you advice. Whether you were searching for answers or not, I always encourage you to take what I share and make it your own experiment. Take what resonates with you, test it out, and make new discoveries for yourself.

The key here is to dig into what you already know and make your own decisions so that you can increase your confidence. The more you become aware of what you’re avoiding, the greater chance you have of overcoming it.

How do you deal when you don’t have all the answers?

I hope this post has encouraged you to listen to what you already know and not get caught up with doing things right the first time. You have the answers you need already. Find them within.

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• Tags: perfectionism