4 simple ways to tame the beast of “Overthinking”
Overthinking is like a vampire, it sucks the life out of you.
“Why….Why did I have to forget it?”, fired a neuron in my brain for the 76th time.
It was a Wednesday, the d-day for us designers when we walk through the design that we’ve been working on for the past 8 weeks on a Teams conference call.
The whole world joins this call, all the stakeholders, the testing teams, product managers, developers, my ex, his neighbour, her dog, you name it, everybody marks their attendance on the call.
To say I dread these calls would be an understatement.
All eyes on my screen and ears on what comes out of my mouth, ready to jump and catch what I say. It is worse than having a “We need to talk” conversation with your ex.
On one such fateful Wednesday, I made a rookie mistake.
I did not take into account one very obvious scenario while designing the solution which was subtly highlighted by one of the stakeholders.
No finger pointing, no blame game. I was only reminded to include it in my design.
That’s it.
My jumpy brain got the cue and went into overdrive.
The brain that otherwise would conveniently ignore any other important piece of information decided to latch onto this thought and started zooming in.
I kept replaying the whole scene in my head a thousand times like a broken record.
Does this sound all too familiar to you? Do you find yourself “overthinking” often?
If yes, you know what it feels like.
Overthinking is like “quicksand”. It makes you feel stuck. The more you want to get out of it, the deeper you sink, frustrating the hell out of you.
If not dealt with, it will muddle your thinking, cloud your judgement, and affect your self-esteem.
A vicious loop that overthinking is, can be difficult to break, but over time one can definitely break free.
If you’d like to stop yourself from overthinking, I’d recommend these strategies:
1. Acknowledge
The first and foremost step before you address an issue is to acknowledge it when it happens. Often times people don’t even realise they are overthinking.
For them, they are just thinking, which is pretty normal, right?
One study found that 73% of adults between the ages of 25 and 35 overthink, as do 52% of 45- to 55-year-olds.
Another research also found that the majority of people don’t know they are over thinkers and an even higher percentage don’t realise when they tend to overthink.
So, the next time you catch your mind running in all the different directions, step back, and acknowledge that you are “over-thinking”.
2. Bid Goodbye to the past
Once you identify that you are overthinking, what to do next.
7 times out of ten, the chances are you thinking about an event that has happened in the past and you keep replaying it in your head, driving yourself nuts.
It is like beating a dead horse. Nothing good will come out of it.
On the surface, it makes you feel like you are doing something productive, analysing things, and getting to the root cause, but that might not necessarily be the case. You are just thinking of a million different ways of how you could’ve done it better.
But the reality is, you did not.
Thinking or brainstorming for a time frame can be good and productive as long it does not consume you, give you brain fog, and deplete your energy reserves.
If it is an event that is within your control and likely to occur again and if you really want something good to come out of it, you could block a time to overthink. Yeah, you heard it right.
Decide on a time and by all means, go all in, overthink as much as you can, identify what went wrong, what were the triggers, note it down and next time onwards, use it as a checklist to not repeat it again.
3. It’s all imaginary
If it is something that has not happened in the past, chances are you are cooking up scenarios about what is to happen in the future.
Again — pay attention, you are freaking out about shit that hasn’t yet happened.
It is nothing but a figment of your imagination.
Praise your inner self for being creative and coming up with the worst possible outcomes.
You could take the creativity to another level and reverse it. Instead of coming up with worse outcomes, try coming up with all the good things that could happen.
Always remember, we are a by-product of our thoughts, we are what we tell ourselves.
So the more you think about ways you could screw up, the likelihood of that turning into a reality is higher.
The next time you have an interview, presentation or a date, and you find yourself stuck in the neverending loop of “What-ifs”, change the outcome.
Go from,
What if I fail?
What if I screw up again?
What if she doesn’t like me?
To
What if I bag that amazing job?
What if I nail the presentation?
What if we hit it off?
4. Distract yourself
In a world full of distractions, where we are advised to keep calm and be still, this is the only time I would advise you to seek distraction.
Do something that will shift your focus and energy on a completely different task.
- Cook a meal.
- Clean your room or your wardrobe.
- Play a game.
- Solve a puzzle.
- Talk to a friend.
- Do Gardening.
- Hit the gym
- Go for a walk.
Involve yourself in an activity that will take your mind off whatever you were ruminating about and lift your spirits.
Final Thoughts
You can definitely tame the beast of overthinking, but it is not something that will happen overnight. Instead of seeing yourself as a victim of “over-thinking”, look at it from a different perspective. Like everything else, it is a bad habit that you have formed over the years, and breaking that habit will take some effort and time.
