How to Think Less
and Prevent Overthinking
A lot of us have a problem … we think too much. You might be wondering, but “Aiden, you always write about how you should analyze everything and make educated decisions.” While I write a lot about the dangers of rash and impulsive decision-making, I think it’s also time to write about the flip side. Overthinking for a lot of us is just as much of a problem as underthinking for a lot of us. But there is definitely a balance, and throughout this article, we’re going to work to try and find that happy medium.
Why is Overthinking Bad?
While rash decision-making leads to you making too many bad decisions, overthinking leads to you not making any decisions at all. This phenomenon is also known as “Analysis Paralysis,” where you get so much in your head that you cannot make decisions. This thought process often leads to stagnation, underachieving, and low productivity.
When paralyzed by your thoughts, you are also exposing yourself to anxiety. Your brain will constantly be thinking of all these crazy situations that are incredibly unlikely. This will cause your decision to be made out of anxiety and paranoia, not logic. Once you get to that point you make rash decisions, but you are just spending more time and stress on them.
Focus on Something Else
I am vulnerable to overthinking just like everyone else, and I’ve found this method incredibly helpful. For example, often, when I turn in a paper at school, I’ll go back, and hyper analyze myself and my writing. I’ll be thinking of random sentences I could have written better. However, over time I got better at that because I was able to effectively shift my mind somewhere else.
It’s just a matter of finding that thing to shift your mind to. For me, writing is definitely one of those things. It lets me transmute my active thought process from worrying to creating and being productive. While writing works for me, many other things can work for you. Some other mentally stimulating distractions are chess, drawing, exercising, or playing music. There are many more, but the main focus is finding one that works for you.
Take Action
The greatest way to beat analysis paralysis is to go out there and take action. In all honesty, most of us will not stop overthinking things until we do them. Once you go out there and act, you will be surprised by how much better you feel. Often the most stressful and painful part of any process is the part you do in your mind in the first place. We get ourselves so psyched out and so mentally defeated before we even do anything that we will lose before we even do it. “Every battle is won or lost before it’s fought,” - Sun Tzu.
So, the best way to not let that negative voice in your head get to you is to go and take action. While this may seem scary initially because you’ll feel like you haven’t analyzed everything or come up with every possible result, that’s a normal feeling. But oftentimes, if you have thought about something for a long time, it’s not like you are rushing into something without making major decisions. You are prepared to do whatever you feel you need to do; you are prepared to go out there and do it. Just attack it and get it done; by the time you finish whatever task you need to do, you’ll wonder why you waited so long.
Check Your Negative Thoughts
When you have high amounts of negative thoughts in your mind, you need to attack these thoughts and figure out a way to overpower your negative self-conscious thoughts with positive self-thoughts. The power of positive mental talk will do a lot of work in effectively defeating your overthinking habits.
You need to build a positive mental attitude. A positive mental attitude will pay more dividends than almost any other skill you could learn. Once you build this mindset, you will find your decision paralysis to be a lot less impactful. For more information on the positive mental attitude, I’ll link one of my past articles here, which you can easily use to expand your positive mental attitude.
Be Kind to Yourself
One of the best ways to stop mentally destroying yourself before you even attempt it is to be kind to yourself and accept your past mistakes. If you keep thinking about everything you did wrong 15 years ago, you will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes you made then.
We all make mistakes in our lives. There will always be things that we look back on and cringe at. That just means that you have grown as a person. It’s okay that you’ve made mistakes. Just accept that you made them and work to move on. It will be much easier to keep moving and improving if you don’t hold your past against yourself.
Conclusion
Thinking a lot is great. But don’t overthink. You need to be able to analyze, but you also need to be able to act. Remember, the hardest part is to start.