How To Stop Overthinking!

Dear Life Amplifiers,

Conducting a thoughtful analysis with the objective to understand a specific situation and to formulate a sound plan are critical. It’s a principal requirement of good and responsible management and life leadership. At the same time, and especially in our fast-paced and ever-changing world, there is not always sufficient time and need for analyzing too broadly and diving too deeply. Too much of thinking and reflecting can even lead to what some call “Analysis Paralysis” which occurs when overanalyzing or overthinking of a situation and alternative options prevent an individual or a group from making a decision.

In addition, overthinking is often linked with worrying too much which causes feelings of restlessness, distress, and sometimes even depression and anxiety. We are all guilty of overanalyzing once in a while a single aspect or topic and not seeing the whole picture any longer.

For some of us this behavior can become very extreme. The more we think, the worse we feel as a result.

And such feelings can cloud our judgment and prevent us from looking more holistically at an entire situation. It can easily become a vicious cycle if we're not getting out of it with will, focus, and the right set of methods.

Getting back in charge of our thoughts is essential to feeling at peace and more balanced again. Here are some techniques I apply in my coaching sessions when “overthinking” is a topic for the coachee:

• Comprehend and embrace the notion that thoughts are just thoughts. They are not facts. They are not a given and they can be changed. By ourselves. We can train our brain in new thinking patterns to form different habits.
• Exercise to notice when we're getting stuck in our head. When we start to either ruminate and dwell in the past or worry about the future too much.
• Create distance from specific thoughts and overthinking patterns with focused mindfulness exercises and focus on solution and forward thinking.
• Intentionally distract yourself from overthinking by changing our behavior and actions in the moment; e.g. when realizing that we're about to fall into overthinking mode we start doing sports, call a friend, etc. In other words, we engage in a total different subject and activity.
• Allocate a specific and conscious amount of time during each day, maybe 30 minutes for deeper thinking and reflection. When time is up we move on to something else.

There’s one more highly effective approach to avoid overthinking and overworrying…

It’s actually a technique that challenges many of us who place equal value on almost every decision. We usually do so, since we're afraid of being wrong.

I heard the first time about this technique when I was with Amazon, as it’s been postulated by then CEO Jeff Bezos. According to him, there are “one-way-door decisions” and “two-way-door” decisions. One-way-door decisions being almost impossible to reverse. They represent very fundamental decisions like quitting a job, launching a new strategic product line, acquiring another company, etc. They require a high degree of contemplation, sophisticated analysis, and very comprehensive consultations with key stakeholders. Once you make such a decision, there's no going back. Two-way-door decisions, however, can be reversed without serious consequences. Like when you test a new price point of a product or when you launch a new in-house training program. Although such decisions are also relevant, you can change and/or reverse them with some time and efforts. If you were to realize that you’ve made a wrong decision, you can turn around, open the door, and go back through. They represent the majority of all decisions and one can and should take them rather quickly.

How do you manage the potential risk of overthinking? Is there an approach or a technique you apply and which helps you to find a healthy balance between thinking thoroughly on the one side, and moving on and taking decisions on the other side? Thanks for joining the discussion by leaving a comment below.

If you want to learn more about overthinking and effective decision making, then reach out to me via my new website at https://andreasvonderheydt.com.

Kind regards,

Andreas von der Heydt, @avonderheydt (Twitter)

#overthinking #stress #anxiety #thoughts #mindful #mindfulness #coach #coaching #avdh #support #happy #unhappy #happiness #decision #decisionmakingprocess