Overthinking Archives - The Art of Improvement

How to Stop Overthinking

Overthinking is easy to slip into. Think about a time you distinctly remember overthinking. You feel your heartbeat rise and your eyes dart. Thoughts fire at unprecedented speeds as you struggle to pick up the pieces. You work yourself up, imagining all kinds of scenarios in your head, overloading it with stress.

Now ask yourself this, how many times have you felt silly or a strange wash of relief because the overthinking led to nothing? More often than not, situations aren’t as complex as you may think. Overthinking can lead to procrastination, and a lack of self-confidence, and destroys the time you have with yourself while potentially affecting those around you. Of course, this isn’t a blanket statement. Neglecting certain aspects in fear of overthinking will cause avoidable issues. Still, it’s worth noting the damage overthinking can cause.

5 Tips to Break Your Addiction To Negative Thinking

According to Dr. Fred Luskin at Stanford University, people generally have over 60,000 thoughts in a day, most of which are repetitive. We often hear the reminder to “think positive!” and be “mindful” of what we’re thinking. Still, it’s easy to get caught up in negativity, worry, or doubt, and spiral into the repetition of those not-so-positive thoughts.

Negative thinking can take hold of us for many reasons. Critical self-talk, being judgemental, or feeling fearful are just a few examples. If you ask most people, they would prefer to be happy, peaceful, safe and positive. But sometimes it’s not that simple. So let’s take a look at how we started thinking this way in the first place.

How to Stop Overthinking and Overcome Self-Doubt

Imagine for a moment that you are the Captain of a great sea voyaging vessel setting out on a journey to an island you’ve never been to before, but you know has many great riches. The weather is fair, your maps point a clear course, and everything is going in your favor.

However, as you set out on your journey, you discover that your crew members have started to grumble — it seems they have doubts as to whether the island exists, whether the ship can actually make the journey, and whether they really deserve the riches, should they find them. The crew decides to mutiny, turn the ship back around, and head for the port where they came from.

That seems a bit silly, doesn’t it? Not deserve the riches? Even though everything was going well, and you, the Captain, knew exactly where you were going and what you would find there, they still had doubt.

Unfortunately, we do this to ourselves all the time. We sabotage our own endeavors by overthinking the whole thing, casting doubt on ourselves, and reverting back to our old habits.