When you’re really excellent at overthinking you can tie yourself in knots very efficiently – and make it extremely hard to make decisions. You don’t do this on purpose, of course; it feels like a very important process that you must keep doing in order to work things out.
Here’s a definition I found, and I think it describes it well:
Overthinking is going over the same thought again and again, analysing the simplest of situations or events until all sense of proportion has gone. The overthinking brain cannot translate these thoughts into actions or positive outcomes, so therefore creates feelings of stress and anxiety.
So -what to do instead?? Here are 3 useful tips
- Be thoroughly and completely kind to yourself – lower your expectations of yourself a little; be as kind as you would be to a friend about these things; allow yourself to make some mistakes and to be ‘good enough’, to let some things go. Acknowledge your successes.
2. Get some perspective – go forward 10 years and check how important these things feel from this vantage point; or imagine flying up high above the earth and looking down at yourself
3. Take action – do something, anything, that creates some movement and interrupts any stuckness; even faking some laughter will take your brain to a new place which can help to ease and shift that old circular activity in your brain. Try it now
Remember that you are just a person doing their best, and this is ok