impulsiveness is not a character flaw
seizing the moment as a cheat code
I’ve been listening to this wonderful podcast interview with Celine Nguyen of Personal Canon, who talks about the importance of being impulsive in key moments and taking action while inspiration is high and can overcome self-doubt or other emotional hurdles. She says:
I think there are certain things where the reason you put them off is because you have overthought them, or they are so psychologically load-bearing. You're afraid of failure. You're afraid of getting things wrong. And so sometimes the only way you can start those things is by seizing the moment and being very impulsive. I've started feeling that being impulsive and being spontaneous is actually a skill—to know the right moment to just not plan and just do something. [...] You might choke up if you try to plan it out more. So it's like you're understanding your own psychology and you're like, the only way I will do this thing, which actually is one of my lifelong dreams, is I have to seize the moment.There are some forms of procrastination that ‘managed’ via things like to-do lists and calendars. There’s another form which is more emotional, and “hairy”. It needs to be managed through things like journaling through it, doing it when enthusiasm is at peak (before you reach Dunning-Kruger depths of realizing your own incompetency).
I think there’s two modes of processing and transmuting this anxiety around doing and creating. One mode is fantasizing - waiting by imagining perfect futures or easier on-ramp, planning as procrastination or doing the work around the work. The other is doing it scared, doing it now, doing it imperfectly and having the fortitude to keep going iteratively.
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