Going off the Rails

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln 

How do you know when the axe is sharp enough? Overthinking is a pattern of behavior where your thoughts swirl in an endless negative loop. These thoughts produce fear that clouds your judgement. Instead of preparing you for positive next steps, you get stuck. How thin is the line between preparation and overthinking?

Why It’s Bad

• Your brain is trying to reduce the anxiety caused by your situation’s uncertainty, but overthinking typically just produces more questions to worry about.
• It may deter you from making rash decisions, but as a habit, overthinking is a gateway to excessive worry which can lead to stress, anxiety, depression, OCD, and/or PTSD.
• Pondering all the possible outcomes to a decision is fine, but when it prevents you from choosing one of them, that’s a problem.
• Do not confuse overthinking with self-reflection. Self-reflection results in learning, insight, and gaining perspective. Overthinking results in dwelling on everything you don’t have control over and feeling bad about it.
• Overthinking projects that are on a deadline gives you less time to complete the project. For example: taking so much time deciding what you’re going to wear to your client presentation that you run out of time to adequately rehearse the presentation.
• If you are busy overthinking a situation, then you are too distracted to notice new opportunities.

What It Feels Like

• You lose sleep because of the repeated negative thoughts of how you feel about the problem instead of how you’re going to solve it.
• You have trouble making easy decisions (e.g., where to go for lunch).
• You second guess your decisions (e.g., I should have known in the interview that Joe Sixpack was a bad hire).

How To Stop

• Distract Yourself: Your brain will come up with possible solutions when you leave it alone for a while. Take a break and listen to a few minutes of your favorite podcast.
• Journal: Stop and write down what triggered the overthink. After a week, read what you wrote. Do you see any patterns? Make a plan to deactivate the trigger the next time it happens.
• The Practical Test: When you are spiraling, ask yourself, “What evidence are these thoughts based on? Is it legitimate? Is there someone I trust that I can ask?” If your thoughts are illogical, unreasonable or impractical, they are overthink.
• Change Your Environment: Enlist your endorphins in the battle. Get outside and go for a run or walk the dog or ride your bike.
• Worry Time: Schedule a recurring weekly appointment on your calendar for worrying and limit it to fifteen minutes. This accomplishes three things: you control when you allow the worried thoughts, you limit the time you allow yourself to worry, and by the time the appointment comes, you may no longer have anything to worry about. Begin your worry time with this question, “Can I do anything to change this situation in the next twenty-four hours?” If yes, then stop thinking and take action. If no, then put the thought on the agenda for the next scheduled worry appointment.

If you can’t stop ruminating on your own, it can damage your mental health. A trained therapist can give you exercises and accountability to pull yourself out of the overthinking doom loop. Learning how to flip your negative, repetitive thoughts into positive ones is a skill worth developing.

What do you do to pull yourself out of overthinking? Please share in the comments.