Last episode, Aubzhang wrote about fear.
This one is about something else: stalling.
Aubzhang keeps noticing the same pattern: most people don't "can't." They "haven't started."
People who want to learn AI save a pile of tutorials and open zero of them. People who want to build something hold the idea in their head for half a year and don't touch a single line. People who want to change careers read countless experience posts and are still "thinking."
Thinking is safe. Thinking costs nothing. Thinking never fails. But thinking never produces anything either.
Aubzhang stalled too.
(1) Aubzhang Stalled Too
Wanting to build with AI — that idea wasn't born this year.
Two years back, Aubzhang already felt the pull. He was doing product operations then, had some ideas in hand, had read some AI news. But every single time, it stopped at "thinking":
- "Once I clear my plate, I'll dig into it."
- "Once I see how others do it, I'll start."
- "Once I'm ready, I'll begin."
Those "onces" added up to one or two years.
Later Aubzhang figured it out: the day you're "ready" never arrives.
(2) Why People Stall
Aubzhang chewed on this for a long time. The root of stalling, he thinks, is perfectionism.
Waiting for a perfect start — enough time, clear thinking, good tools, right mood.
Reality: those conditions never line up at the same time.
- There's never enough time.
- Your thinking is always a little fuzzy somewhere.
- There's always a tool you don't know how to use.
- Your mood always goes up and down.
People waiting for the perfect start end up never starting.
(3) How Aubzhang Broke It
Aubzhang didn't break stalling with "willpower." He broke it by lowering the bar to the floor.
His method:
- Pick the smallest, most concrete thing.
- Don't aim for "good." Aim for "done."
- Let it be ugly. Let it be incomplete.
Aubzhang's first AI build was a vocabulary app. Why that one? Not because it mattered most, but because it was the smallest, the most concrete, the least likely to fail.
What he told himself: take one step. Even a tiny one. Step out first — then walking becomes possible.
(4) You Get "Ready" by Doing
Looking back now, Aubzhang sees something:
You don't get ready and then do. You do, and then you're ready.
- If you don't start, you never find out where it jams.
- If you don't start, you never find out what you're missing.
- If you don't start, that perfect beginning never shows up.
The doing is the preparation.
The first time Aubzhang built the vocabulary app, he didn't understand deployment, environments, or any of the jargon. But bit by bit, he got it. Not because he got smarter. Because problems showed up and forced him to solve them.
Final Thoughts
Aubzhang isn't writing this to say "stop stalling."
Stalling is normal. Everyone has things they want to do and things they never got to. Especially for a middle-aged guy like Aubzhang — time chopped into fragments, energy drained by life.
But here is one honest line:
"Thinking" doesn't move you closer to the goal. "Doing" does.
Even if it's one tiny thing. Even if it's imperfect. Once you do it, you're already outside the circle of "thinking."
Aubzhang still stalls right now — some things he wants to do haven't started. But he knows: stall any longer, and those things stay "ideas" forever.
So Aubzhang isn't waiting anymore. Finish this piece, then go wrestle with the next thing.