112. The Research Loop: Why More Information Is a Form of Stalling

Holly Toscanini: Tell me if you can relate. You have something you wanna do. Maybe it's a change you wanna make or a direction you keep being pulled toward or a decision that's been sitting in your lap for longer than you'd like to admit. And you're not doing nothing about it. You're very busy actually. You're reading about it. You're listening to podcast episodes about it, saving articles, watching TikTok videos, making notes, joining the free webinar, downloading the workbook, following the accounts that talk about the thing. maybe even checking in with a friend who's kind of doing something similar. You are gathering information. You're being thorough. You are by any reasonable measure taking this seriously. And the thing itself, the actual move, the actual decision, the actual change is exactly where it was six months ago. This is the research loop. And today we're going to name it for what it is. We're going to understand why it's so hard to catch and use two tools you already have to start breaking the pattern. Welcome back to How to Lose the Weight. I'm your host, Holly Toscanini. And today, this week in particular, week two of the weight framework, and that's WAIT, this is a series of 12 weeks making the patterns that keep midlife women stuck visible enough to actually change. Now, last week we talked about the inner counsel, those permission givers who've been running your decision-making process. often without your awareness. And if you haven't listened to that one yet, go back. It's episode 111 and it sets up a lot of what we're gonna be doing in this 12 week series. Now this week we're looking at what often happens right after women start to see the permission giving pattern. Because a very predictable thing tends to occur. They go looking for more information about it. More research, more reading, more workshops to understand all the strategies. And that feels like progress, it genuinely does. But sometimes it's just another reason to keep waiting. Let's name that today. So to be crystal clear about what I mean by the research loop, because I'm not talking about learning. Learning is valuable. Curiosity is healthy. Reading and growing and seeking out information that helps you make better decisions, none of that is the problem. The research loop is something specific. It's what happens when gathering information becomes a substitute for action rather than preparation for it. And here's how to tell the difference. When you're genuinely learning in service of making a decision, the information changes what you do. You read something, it shifts your thinking, and you make a move that's different because of what you now know. The learning has a purpose. When you're in the research loop, the information accumulates, but the move never happens. You finish one book and breach for another one. You complete one course and immediately roll into the next one. You listen to one podcast episode, maybe even this one, and feel the temporary satisfaction of having done something without having done the thing. The loop has its own logic. It really does feel like momentum. It feels like you're getting so much closer. But if you look at where you are relative to where you were a year ago, the distance between you and the actual thing you want to change hasn't moved much. That's the research loop. And here's what makes it particularly sticky for you. You're not lazy. It's the opposite of lazy. It requires effort and discipline and genuine intellectual engagement. mean, smart, capable, high achieving women are disproportionately susceptible to it precisely because they're so good at it. Research is something they know how to do well. It's familiar. It's socially acceptable and comes with none of the vulnerability of actually starting. What it is underneath all of that is a very sophisticated form of avoidance and not avoidance born of indifference. I mean, you care about this thing, this change, but avoidance born of fear, the fear of starting and failing, the fear of starting and succeeding and then having to keep going, the fear of being seen. The fear that once you actually begin, you'll find out why you're not as capable as you'd hoped, or that you wanted something even bigger than you dared to admit. Or maybe that the change you've been researching is going to require you to actually change. The research loop keeps all of that safely theoretical. As long as you're still gathering information, you're still in preparation mode. And preparation is the most comfortable place to live in when action feels risky. So how do you know when you've crossed from genuine learning into the research loop? Well, here are a few honest signals. The first is what I call the completion without movement pattern. You finish something, a book, a course, a podcast, a conversation, and the next thing you do is immediately reach for more input rather than take even a small action based on what you've just learned. There's no pause, no integration, no, okay, based on this, here's the one thing that I'm gonna do. just more information. Now the second is the clarity that just never quite arrives. And you've been telling yourself you're doing the research because you need more clarity before you can take an action. And you keep getting more information and you keep feeling like clarity is just around the corner and it keeps not arriving. That's a signal. Because genuine clarity usually doesn't require infinite information. It requires sitting with what you already know, which is often the last thing the research loop lets you do. Now the third is the substitution feeling. There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes after spending an entire evening reading about the thing instead of doing the thing. A kind of low-grade guilt that tells you something's off. You're busy, but you weren't honest. You were productive, but not in the direction that actually matters to you. And if you recognize that feeling, you know the loop. And the fourth, and this is the one worth sitting with, is that you already know enough to get started. Maybe not enough to finish, not enough to guarantee a particular outcome, but enough to take one small, real step. And you're not taking it. That's the loop right there. Now, here's the important piece. None of this means anything about who you are as a person or that you've been fooling yourself about what you really want. The research loop is a protection strategy and it developed because at some level action felt riskier than preparation and that fear is legitimate. What we're doing today isn't shaming the research loop, it's just noticing it, naming it, and then using tools you already have to move through it. Now, I want to show you how to use two tools you already have, tools we've talked about on this show before. specifically applied to the research loop because the loop doesn't need a new framework. It needs an interruption. The first tool is the Notice, Name, Tiny Next Move. If you've been listening to this show for a while, you've heard of this one, but I'm gonna walk you through how to apply it specifically here because the application matters. Notice is the first step. When you catch yourself reaching for more input, opening the next article, queuing up another episode, adding another book to the list. Just pause long enough to notice what's happening. Not with judgment, not with a long internal analysis, just a moment of, I'm doing that thing again. Name it out loud, even just to yourself. I'm in the research loop. Naming it isn't self-criticism. It's precision. It moves the behavior from automatic to visible, which is the only place you can actually work with it is when you can see it. And then, this is the critical part, tiny next move. Not the whole plan, not the complete strategy, the smallest possible action, the micro move that would shift you from gathering information to doing something. One paragraph written, send one email, one conversation that you start, one thing you register for, one task completed that is not the actual project, not research about the project. The tiny next move doesn't have to be impressive, it just has to be real. And there's a significant difference between spending an evening reading about starting a podcast, let's say, and spending 20 minutes recording a rough first draft that nobody's ever gonna hear. Both took roughly the same amount of effort, but only one of them breaks the loop. The second tool is three micro desires. Now this one might surprise you as an antidote to the research loop, but stick with me here. The research loop is at its core, a disconnection from your own intuition or inner knowing. You keep going out, more books, more experts, more frameworks, because you've stopped trusting what you already know inside. Now, three micro desires is a practice of returning to your own body signals, your own intuition, which is exactly what the loop is designed to avoid. So here's how to apply it in this context. Once a day, pause and ask yourself, not what do I need to learn, but what do I already want to do? Not the big answer, a tiny one. Something in the direction of the thing you've been researching. Something that is about doing rather than knowing. Maybe it's spending 15 minutes sketching out an idea rather than reading about how to develop ideas. Maybe it's writing down what you actually think about a topic rather than what you've read about it or been told about it. Maybe it's making one small decision about it rather than gathering more information to help you decide what to do next. What you're practicing is the muscle of acting on your own knowing rather than perpetually outsourcing it to other people's expertise. Which if you remember, episode 111 is exactly what the permission giving pattern trains you out of. Now, these two tools work together in the research loop context. Notice, name, tiny next move. interrupts the pattern in the moment. The three micro desires rebuilds the underlying trust that makes the interruption possible. So you see, you need both. Now here's what I would love for you to take away from today's episode. You don't have a clarity problem. You have a pattern and the pattern has a name, the research loop. It's smart. It's socially acceptable and it kind of feels like progress. And it's one of the most effective ways a capable woman can keep herself exactly where she is while feeling like she's moving. Noticing it doesn't mean you've been wasting your time. It means you're ready to use what you already know. Now, your practice this week is pretty straightforward. The next time you reach for more input about something, maybe something you've been circling, just notice it, name it. And before you open the next article or cue the next podcast episode, take one tiny move in the direction of actually doing it, even if it's small, especially if it's small. And once this week, instead of asking, what do I need to learn about this? Ask, what do I already want to do? Follow that answer somewhere, even for 15 minutes. That's three micro desires applied directly to the research loop. Now, if you want a clearer picture of which patterns are currently running your waiting cycle, including whether the research loop is one of your primary ones, the free Unwaiting audit is the place to start. It takes just a couple of minutes and it's going to give you a specific personalized picture of where you're stuck. and what exactly to focus on next. You can find it in the link in the show notes or in the description below this video. Next week, episode 113, we're going one level deeper into something that lives right underneath the research loop, the permission problem, why your desires are still on the someday list. Here's what I've noticed. A lot of women know what they want. They've done the research, they understand the pattern, and they still won't let themselves have it. not because they can't, but because they're still waiting for some unnamed external permission that's never going to arrive. If you've been saying, I'll do it when for longer than feels reasonable, that one is specifically for you. Until next time, I'll see you then and bye for now.