The Quick Fix is Twenty Feet High

Let me tell you about two ladders.

The first ladder has one rung. Just one. Take that single step, and you’re done — you’re at the top. Fixed. Changed. Finished.

That’s the ladder everybody wants. Of course it is. It’s fast. It’s simple. One step.

There’s just one problem. The ladder is twenty feet high. One rung, all the way at the top.

You can’t reach it. Nobody can. Not the most disciplined person you know. Not the person on your feed who seems to have it all together. Nobody.

The Jump

Here’s what overthinkers do with that ladder. We jump for it.

We decide that starting Monday, everything changes. The whole routine, all at once. We decide we’ll finally have the hard conversation — but only once we’ve figured out the perfect words. We decide we’ll launch the thing, make the change, become the person — as soon as we’re sure.

And then we miss. Because the ladder is twenty feet high, and that one rung was never reachable.

But here’s the part that hurts. When we miss, we don’t blame the ladder. We blame ourselves.

What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I follow through? Everyone else can do this.

And now the overthinking has fuel for a week.

Nothing is wrong with you. You picked an unreachable ladder. That’s all.

The Other Ladder

The second ladder doesn’t look like much. It has lots of rungs. Small ones. Close together.

Every single rung is within reach.

One ten-minute step. Then another. Send the one email — not the whole project, the one email. Make the one phone call. Walk to the corner, not the marathon. Say one true sentence in the conversation instead of delivering the perfect speech.

It doesn’t feel impressive. It doesn’t feel fast. Some days it barely feels like anything.

And then one day you look down — and you’re twenty feet up.

Same height as the other ladder. You just got there a different way. The way that actually exists.

Why our brains hate this?

If the small-rung ladder works so well, why does everyone keep jumping at the other one?

Because the one-rung ladder makes a better story. “I changed everything overnight” sounds like a movie. “I did one small thing every day for a while” sounds like a Tuesday.

And because overthinkers are certainty-chasers. The big leap feels like it comes with a guarantee — once I’m sure, once I’m ready, once conditions are perfect, then I’ll move. So we stand at the bottom, thinking. Preparing. Researching one more thing.

But here’s the truth: certainty is not coming. It was never coming. The small rung doesn’t ask you to be certain. It only asks you to be willing — for about ten minutes.

Try this today

Pick one thing you’ve been overthinking. Not the biggest thing in your life — a medium thing.

Now find its smallest rung. A step so small it almost feels silly. Ten minutes or less. One email. One call. One paragraph. The shoes by the door.

Then take the step while you’re still uncertain. Uncertainty is allowed to come along. It always was.

That’s it. That’s the whole method. Not because one small step solves everything — it doesn’t. But because progress isn’t jumping.

It’s climbing.

See you on the next page,

Lisa