Thinking is a superpower. Within it lives creativity, sense-making, problem-solving, the ability to feel and process our lived experiences, and our ability to understand and learn. On the other hand, it can also become your worst enemy when you get stuck in harmful overthinking. As we think about personal growth and development, the quality of our thinking is directly correlated to our growth, development, and health. So, how can an overthinker—who is probably going to overthink overthinking—learn how to stop overthinking?
The good and the bad of overthinking
Well, first, let’s acknowledge that overthinking is not always bad. Overthinking is something encouraged during strategic planning in most of our workplaces. We are encouraged to consider the pros, cons, risks, and mitigation. We try to pre-think how various audiences will receive and interpret our messages or products, and we engage our abilities to think from multiple perspectives.
Overthinking can also come in handy when planning a trip or event. We learn to anticipate scenarios to help us ensure we have the necessary supplies and resources. In these cases, thinking of the various ways things might deviate from the plan helps us better prepare.
However, two things can be true at the same time: overthinking can be both a blessing and a barrier. When overthinking leads to inaction, negative behaviors, self-doubt, anxiety, or harmful thinking patterns, we know we have a problem worth addressing.
So, if you are currently kicking yourself because overthinking has been more of a barrier to you lately, let’s start by reframing how we view overthinking before we move any further.
Reframe: I see the beauty in my brain. It is active and creative, and I need to work on building a more positive mindset and thinking patterns. I am not fundamentally flawed; I just need to become more proficient at managing my thoughts.
Managing vs. controlling your thoughts:
Overthinking in and of itself is not bad. As I mentioned earlier, there are times when it is extremely beneficial. Overthinking becomes problematic when it causes you to remain stuck in negative thinking patterns, prevents you from taking desired actions based on fear, or damages your relationship with yourself or others.
Therefore, our personal development goal should be to learn how to manage negative overthinking.
I am using the word “manage” intentionally. If you are in the early stages of this process, you might be focused on “controlling” your thoughts. Control requires significant self-discipline and mastery and can also great a sense of tension or resistance between you and your thoughts. If you have not been successful at controlling your thoughts, this might leave you with feelings of failure or negative self-talk.
So, what if we just started focusing on managing our thoughts? In this case, we allow the thoughts to flow, but we focus on putting them in their correct place. This is a stance of radical acceptance vs. resistance. We cannot always prevent negative thoughts from emerging or avoid overthinking, but we can increase our awareness of those thoughts, accept them as insight into our current mental state, and direct them to their proper place in our minds. If we can improve how we manage our thoughts, that can lead to a greater degree of “control” over our minds.
For now, let’s just start small.
Practical strategies to help you stop overthinking
Overcoming overthinking for the overthinker can be complicated because it is very easy to overthink the next steps. Therefore, for the second half of this post, let’s explore some very practical ways to begin combating overthinking.
Radical acceptance: If you are an overthinker, it is important to acknowledge and accept that is where you are right now. This does not mean you have to agree or condone poor behaviors, but it is important to look in the mirror, be honest with your starting point, and accept it for what it is. Don’t rationale or distort it, but embrace it as something to work through versus resisting or ignoring it. While you are at it, also tell yourself that you are an incredible person living a human experience. Give yourself some grace and start looking forward to better days.
Create a daily schedule or list of activities: Overthinking only gets worse when you are stuck in rumination. The more you ruminate, the more magnified the thoughts can become. This is true for both positive and negative thinking. And, in some cases, overthinking can lead to procrastination or inaction. Therefore, something as simple as planning your day can help recenter your thoughts and actions on things within your control, and keep you focused on the present (versus living too much in the past or the future).
Planning your day can promote healthy active thinking in the following ways:
- First, this can help you feel like you are taking small positive actions toward the bigger goal you are overthinking.
- Second, it keeps your body and mind active and breaks up negative overthinking.
- Third, becoming immersed in things that bring you a feeling of joy and positivity can help you find perspective and reasons to keep pushing past negative overthinking.
- Finally, movement of the body and mind promotes creativity and brings clarity.
Schedule time to check in on your thinking patterns: Since life can get so busy, it is important to have moments when you slow down and check in with yourself. What we ruminate on magnifies. If we don’t have times when we interrupt that thinking, it will get to a point where it feels unwieldy. Checking in with yourself can happen as frequently as you want–daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly. What is most important is that you stop and ask yourself whether you are operating in positive or negative overthinking patterns.
Limit triggers: This one is straightforward. There can be things and people that trigger overthinking. They cause anxiety, worry, and feelings of inadequacy or lack. In these cases, it might be helpful to limit exposure when you are feeling particularly vulnerable to overthinking.
When our mind plays tricks on us
Here is the funny thing: most times, the thing we are overthinking is usually not as bad as our mind makes it out to be. Our minds go to the worst case scenario first and we think about all the negative and bad things that will might along the way.
Maybe it is time to stop and consider this: What is the good that can come from this? What positive outcomes might occur as a result of this? What opportunities am I missing out on because I’m overthinking this?
I hope you have a great week ahead. Don’t overthink it.
life/me. 