For most of my life, I've been an overthinker.
Allowing my judgements to get cloudy.
The stress and emotions to build and spread wildly.
I overthought everything.
From getting dress, to sending a simple text.
Life.
Not to mention the quality of my performance or efforts.
Especially now.
As a content creator, there have been plenty of days where overthinking has gotten the
best of me.
More than I can honestly remember.
Now there's nothing inherently wrong with thinking itself or deep-thinking.
In fact we should be thinking, often.
It's a way for us to exercise our mind.
To train our brain.
However just like physical exercise we should be cautious about over-training our bodies,
so we don't run the risk of injury.
Well I've learned that training our brains works in a very similar way.
Thinking is good, but overthinking runs the risk of injury.
Well in this case it increases the likelihood of stress, clouded judgement.
It disturbs your sleep and creates a life that just feels emotionally and mentally drained.
Now an easy way to fix this would be to change our bad habit of overthinking, but there's
a little more to it than just that.
Let's talk about it.
Here are seven simples ways to help you to stop overthinking, that are actually actionable
steps towards changing our bad habit of overthinking.
Speaking of change.
If you've been consuming my content for while, I'm sure you've heard me talk about change
a few different times before.
So as you know, change is not something happens overnight.
It's a process that requires patience and understanding.
Awareness being the step in that process
Before we can address the bad habit of overthinking.
We have to learn to be aware of when it's happening.
See anytime we find ourselves doubting our actions, feeling stressed, feeling stuck or
just feeling emotionally and mentally drained.
Then that's the perfect time to take a step back and take a look at our current situation
or surroundings number 1 and number 2 decide how we're going to respond.
"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness."
Words said by James Thurber.
Simple words, that carry so much value, with so little effect.
Self-awareness is at the center our ability to grow, learn and adapt.
And in every moment of awareness a seed of change is planted.
This particular seed, is the start of change towards shutting down overthinking.
Number two pull things into perspective.
In other words, it's easy for us to make things bigger than they need to be, or bigger than
they are in our mind.
Especially in a negative light.
Which is why we have to build self-awareness so we can pull thing into perspective.
Now I have an interesting tactic to help with this and it's called doing a brain dump.
However this brain dump is structured a little differently than what you probably have in
mind.
Let me explain.
Step one: is to do exactly what it says.
Brain dump.
Take everything your mind has clinched it hands around.
Every thought you've over thought and everything you continue to overthink and just dump it
on a piece of paper, in a journal or in a digital notebook.
Either way just write it down.
Step two: is to sort it into categories.
Now this is where it starts to get interesting.
You have three categories to choose from: 1.
General thought.
2.
Action item.
3.
Emotion or feeling.
Now once you have everything sorted, read through each thing you wrote down and ask
yourself this question.
How important is this right now? or How much will this matter tomorrow?
Next week? or even next year?
See just that simple question and changing the way you view everything you've laid out
in front of you will not only shut down overthinking, but help you determine your next step.
Do or Discard.
Am I going to react, respond or act on this thought, item or feeling.
Or am I going to choose to ignore, detach and dump what doesn't matter and probably
won't matter any time soon.
Number three is change your view of fear.
In some cases overthinking is caused by a single emotion—fear.
Either you're afraid because you've failed before, or you're fearful of trying because
you don't want to fail, or feel rejected or embarrassed if things don't work out.
You're just not sure where this road leads so you're overthinking every step along the
way.
I get it, trust me.
But see you have to remember that every opportunity is a new beginning with a clean canvas.
And in that moment you have a choice you have to make.
You can either allow fear to find home in your body and eat away at you, or you can
face everything and rise.
Number four is realize you can't predict the future or the change the past.
No one can.
Regardless of what you've heard or what someone has told you.
The past has been lived and the future has yet to come.
All you have is right now.
We all have right now.
And if you spend all of your present time over analyzing past actions or overthinking
things that haven't even happened yet, then you're robbing yourself of your time now,
your energy and your peace.
Try shifting your thinking to something like this.
"My past action have shaped my present self, and if I want the future to look any different
then I have to focus on what's in front of me now."
Number five is a big one.
Stop waiting for perfection.
See an image of what perfection looks like does not exist.
And if you're a pretty ambitious person then we're on the same page here, we're connecting
right now, because the moment we start thinking "this need to be perfect" is the exact moment
we start to overthink and overanalyze.
We have to remind ourselves that aiming for perfection is unrealistic.
But doing, growing, learning and experiencing.
Those things are extremely practical and worth it.
Number six is take control of your emotions.
Now this doesn't mean we should bottle up and bury the negative emotions we feel at
times.
This is actually meant to have the opposite effect.
Taking control of your emotions means to acknowledge when you feel something.
Explore why you feel if and then take control of the situation through seeking a solution.
An example of this is something I did a while back when I put a custom wallpaper on my phone
that said and I quote "don't let it bother you ron, it's not worth it."
And this was back in June.
The nineteenth to be exact, I've change it since then.
But doing that helped me acknowledge when I felt something.
Because instead of trying to ignore it and by scrolling through social media, I was forced
to acknowledge it and explore it just by reading that simple statement every time I reached
for my phone.
Number seven is visualize what can go right by focusing on solutions.
Simply put, when you focus on all of the negative things that might go wrong, or overthink every
ounce in a pound, then that is the quickest way to end up paralyzed mentally—stuck,
stagnant, stressed, clouded or emotionally and mentally drained.
Now this idea requires prep work up front, rather than an act of response later.
Meaning you should start your day visualizing what can go right and practice keeping those
thoughts present and upfront before your mind has the can drift and start spiralling off
in a direction towards overthinking, and overanalyzing and sometimes negativity.
But if it does chose to focus on a solution rather than the emotion.
Well I hope I shared something with in this video that gives you an actionable step you
can walk away with today and start shutting down overthinking in your life.
And if I did, make sure you give this video a thumbs up for me.
Comment below as well and tell me exactly which point is going to that first step for
you.
I'd love to continue this conversation.
Also I have more videos here on the channel in a series or playlist titled get your life
together, so if you enjoyed this conversation, I'm sure you'll receive value from those as
well.
If you're new here, hit that subscribe button, tap the bell and join this community so you
can grow and learn with all of us here.
Always remember to stay true to you.
And I'll see you in the next one.
Peace!