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Overthinker.

It’s no new fact in telling you that I’ve always been an overthinker, an obsessive overthinker, more accurately, and I’ve spent enough of my time contemplating situations and decisions and conversations that I know everything about overthinking inside and out.

Overthinking is an indispensable part of my days and I’m learning to stop.

In this blog post I’ll be telling you what I needed to hear—why do we overthik to begin with, and why do we do it so incessantly, and if there is a way to permanently stop it, then what exactly is it.

So what are you waiting for? I bet if you’re here, you’re at last fed up of this bad habit of overtinking and over-analyzing small situations too much, and you want to know what you can do to stop overthinking.

But first of all, before divulging into the basic methods to stop overthinking, we’ll figure out why it happens in the first place. As Charles Kettering said, a problem well-stated is a problem half solved, right?

Why do we Overthink?

#1 Worries for the future.

We overthink many things, the two primary ones being the past and the future. Rarely do we ovethink the present, rarely do we even live in the present.

Most of us are either regretting the past or worrying the future. This fascination with things other than the now is one of the most basic reasons for overthinking.

We can overthink because we are worried about something that is going to happen a month later, or a week later, or even tomorrow. And since we’re scared in a way of what could happen, we begin thinking up scenarios, mostly about how the whole situation can go downhill.

We start expecting the absolute worst. This is one of the main reasons for overthinking.

#2 Regrets of the past.

As I said in the last point, some of our over-thoughts also arise from our brains regretting some part of the past which we might want to relive in a different way.

Now since we regret the past, but we can’t do actually do anything to change it in some way, we resort to just thinking about it over and over again until we’ve rendered ourself a headache down an infinite loop of endless better possibilities that could’ve happened, that day, say, fifteen years ago.

However, sometimes regrets aren’t the only thing we might think about from the past.

Sometimes trauma (maybe even childhood trauma) and past abusive or toxic relationships, or anxiety or depression can also lead to a string of unhealthy thoughts that worm their way into our present lives and torment us endlessly.

As you can see, this is a pretty sad way to live life, thinking about something that isn’t going to happen ever again, still being stuck in the past.

As you can see, we need to stop.

I’ve got those sleepless nights when out of nowhere I begin thinking about the most humiliating memories of my childhood and this is actually what overthinking is all about. You know it’s irrelevant now, but you can’t seem to stop.

#3 Self-doubt and lack of self-esteem

This is actually kinda related to the uncertainty about the future part, where we’re scared of what might happen and we’re not adapted to the change yet, so we don’t know how we’d deal with it once it arrives.

Aside from rethinking the past or the future, another reason why we overthink so frequently and obsessively is that it arises from a lack of self-esteem and doubts in oneself.

Overthinking is most of the times, fear. As Jay Shetty creatively says, Fear makes us fiction writers, in his book Think Like A Monk, fear actually prompts our brain to think up new creative ways in which we can embarrass ourselves.

This fear is generated from within our own minds when we imagine the worst case scenarios and write up imaginary page after page of dreaded outcomes and situations that we might face.

The reason behind this can be pin pointed to a lack of self-esteem, where we are afraid that if, or pessimistically enough, when the worst case scenario strikes, we somehow wouldn’t be able to cope with it.

#1 Be where your feet are

The most basic method to tell an overthinker to stop overthinking would be to tell them to be where their freaking feet are.

This is a fancier way to say live in the present. And it’s literal and true too.

Technically, we overthinkers prefer to be anywhere but where are feet are, and yet that is what every person in the world is supposed to do.

Since today is a present, and we’ll only have it once in our life, and tomorrow will somehow be different and not the same, it is within our duty to make sure that we live excatly in the present and not in the future or the past. A major way to stop overthinking is to tell yourself that you are here, in the now and nothing outside of this time stamp matters.

Overthinker, you’ve gotta be where your feet are.

#2 Worrying won’t change the future

Part of our overthinking traffic comes from the worries that we hold for what might happen in the future, how things might go wrong and what might happen to you.

We have to realise soon enough, though, that worrying about anything won’t change even a bit of the future.

Worrying is like walking with an umbrella, waiting for it to rain.

-Wiz Khalifa

Any amount of worrying we do in sake of the future won’t change anything that’s going to happen tomorrow, until we actually take some steps to deliberately make it go our way.

Until then, we’re stuck with this future.

So, overthinker, you worrying about little or even big things won’t change anything about them, maybe harm your mental peace or something, nothing more. If you really are scared or insecure about the future, change it.

#3 If it’s out of your control, let it go.

I talked about changing the future if you don’t like it, with the assumption that the way the things turn out to be is actually within our control. but rarely is that the case.

Seldom are things within our control, and most of the times we’re just like puppets held by strings reacted to the situations we’re provided with in a really expected and no-surprise manner.

Oftentimes, the future is supposed to go the way it is, and the factors of changing it are either not under our wing, or are absent from the picture altogether.

In those cases, when we’ve finally realised that nothing we do or think or see can change what is going to come, it’s best to just let it go, not for any other purpose than preserving your mental health and peace.

Dear, overthinker, you’re adamant on changing the world, but some things just aren’t within your control. Kindly let them go.

#4 Let go of the image you’ve created for yourself in your mind.

We’re obsessed with a lot of things, as it turns out.

We’re obsessed with thinking, and we’re obsessed with ourselves. We think so much about ourselves, about how we’re coming out to be, how we’re looking, sounding, are we being liked or not, what are we supposed to do now, how are we supposed to better ourselves.

Sure, many of these queries are valid and relate to what a basic human being thinks about themsleves. But some of them, some of them are surely trivial and fruitless to think about.

We all have these images made up in our minds about how our personality and public image should turn out to be. These images are holding us back, instead of the opposite that we believe they’re doing.

I shouldn’t do this, because it doesn’t suit me (even if it’s not necessarily a bad tings to do this). I shouldn’t harm my goodwill. I shouldn’t do anything that might make me seem less likable, less approachable, less respectable.

I’ve read of this thing that some of us have this spotlight complex where we are essentially under the impression that everyone’s attention is focused solely on us and so we have to perform up to standards and always remain self-conscious in case someone’s actually watching.

Overthinker, thinking what others think about you is going to get you nowhere. You only need to focus on who you really are. And that’s…not an overthinker, hopefully.

#5 Prepare yourself

Of course, the main answer to why do we overthink circumstances and conversations and life decisions are because we’re scared in a way of what might happen.

The best way to stop overthinking now would be to be more courageous, to prepare ourselves for whatever the future is going on throw on us.

Overthinking is eliminated by the growth of self esteem.

If we know what we’re doing is right and we’re confident in ourselves, then this leads to less and less probability of situations going downhill, because we’re prepared for anything as it comes.

Listen here, you have to be courageous, you have to be ready, you gotta prepare yourself for anything. And increase your self esteem, please.

Note: Read this if you’d like to know how to increase self steam, whether of yourself or of a close friend. How to help a friend battle with low self esteem.

#6 Life is short

Life is really short, or at least it seems like it is.

Ask yourself, do you really want to spend all your precious time overthinking things that are probably never even going to matter enough?

Is that how cheap you’re willing to turn your days into—worrying about the future that’s not even here right now, and might just turn out to be all posiitve, for all you know, and regretting a past that’s bloody not even here anymore?

Is this how you’re actually willing to spend life? Think again. My dear overthinker, our time here on the beautiful earth is short, and we need to decide right now if we want to waste it away.

#7 Positive overthinking

There is a kind of overthinking that’s not necessarily negative for the overthinker.

Sometimes you don’t have to always think the downhill situation.

You can instead think of the positive, in a way manifest the whole positivity in your life and then your overthinking will actually turn around and be benefitting to you because it’ll lead to a positive outcome.

This isn’t about overthinking the future, overthinking things like decisions and choices. It’s more like, deep thinking, you know, thinking deeply and in detail about the different outcomes to a problem and then deciding the most viable option.

Deep thinking actually is beneficial to all of us, if we come to think of it, and if all of us just started to think positively and rationally instead of making irrational assumptions in our minds, it’d be loads better.

Conclusion + Extra Material

I bet overthinking sucks. I bet being an overthinker sucks too. I can tell that from experience. However, while we’re working on our shortcoming of how to stop overthinking, we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves if we’re not able to change.

Overthinking comes naturally and easily, but it’s hard to let it go. It’s really hard to change. Don’t lose hope in the process and if you ever feel like you’re not able to do it perfectly, just remember to forgive yourself for not being perfect.

Want to know if maybe you indulge in more self-sabotaging habits than just overthinking? It’s preferable to stop right now. These are eleven self-sabotaging behaviors explained, along with methods to stop them.