I think I’m addicted to planning/self-analysis instead of actually doing the work
I'm a CS student going into 3rd year of college and I genuinely feel stuck in this weird cycle where I overthink everything instead of actually building anything.
Just as a background im interested in a lot of tech fields like I like AI, low level system programming, devops, game dev, research stuff, cybersecurity and I spend time reading/watching/thinking about them, but when it comes to actually sitting down and building consistently, my brain just shuts down.
It feels like there’s this huge intent-action gap. Starting even small projects feels mentally heavy. And when I do start, I overthink the project itself: “What if this is too basic?”, “What if this won’t help my resume?”, “What if I should be building something cooler?”, "What if I’m wasting time?”
Then I procrastinate, doomscroll, watch random videos/anime, consume more content, feel guilty, then repeat.
The weird thing is I AM curious about tech. I like understanding systems and learning how things work internally. But curiosity isn’t translating into action or consistency.
And just to say it I feel that I'm emotionally attached to whatever task im doing, if I don't feel validated or something my brain also screams at me it's not worth it without even trying it first !
I also compare myself a lot to other people who seem way ahead and building crazy stuff, and then I feel overwhelmed and directionless again.
I’ve had this “I’ll lock in tomorrow” conversation with myself a hundred times already and I’m tired of it.
Has anyone here genuinely broken out of this cycle? Especially people in tech? What actually helped you stop overthinking and start executing consistently?