How to stop overthinking

Most of us used to overthink on everything; specifically, what happens to us, what we think happens to us, what other people think of us, what other people think of others and what happens to them. 

I'm going to share with you the biggest culprit of all – stress. We just need to start focusing on the things that really matter, and most importantly, only do what we actually want to do. This is definitely easier said than done, especially when your emotions are running in all different directions.

What Causes Stress?

People often stress for the following reasons:

• Trying to manage all the stress in our lives, especially when we have so much to do, and so little time.

• Trying to cope with the stress that other people cause us – knowing how to deal with stressful situations is what separates successful people from those who don't.

• Feeling stressed out because we have so many different things that we have to deal with in our lives, some of which are good, and others which are bad.

• Feeling stressed when we have to spend time dealing with the problems of other people, rather than dealing with the problems that we have ourselves.

• Feeling stressed when we feel uncertain of what will happen in our lives in the future.

• Trying to get ourselves out of stress and just feeling like we're not getting anywhere.

That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what stress does. The fact is, stress does happen to us all the time. Most of us suffer from it, but not everyone feels the same stress, and not every person feels it as badly as the one who overthink everything.

In addition to this, stress comes in all shapes and sizes. Some stress comes from really trying to think about a situation in the right way, which requires a lot of focus and effort. Others stress comes from trying to push our minds into a corner to think about a situation that we've already thought of. And some stress comes from the feeling that there's so much work to do, and we're not sure how to do it, so we try to overthink the situation.

We need to start focusing on the things that really matter in our lives – not stress about the things that really don't matter. And that, my friends, is where a lot of problems start, and overthinking is one of them.

1. Overthinking about the Future

We do this all the time, and we don't even realize that we're doing it. But we do this to such an extent that it actually affects our emotions.

When we think about the future, we can't help but feel anxious and stressed, because we have so many different things going on in our heads that we never actually managed to think about before.

Let me tell you one thing – you do have the power to manage the future. What you need to do is learn to focus on one thing at a time, and feel the need to actually do that one thing, and not worry about the next thing.

What are you afraid of, and where is it coming from? Where are you not looking at your goals and how to achieve them?

When you can focus on a goal at a time, you are not only getting yourself closer to that goal, but you're also feeling more positive about your situation. This is what's going to allow you to manage stress, and not stress out over things you actually don't need to stress out about.

2. Overthinking About What's Actually Going On

And now, you're probably thinking, "Okay, I can deal with the first problem, but I don't really like this way of looking at my situation either."

You're right. I don't like the way that you look at it either. You need to get to the point where you can understand the way that things really work, and then you're going to be able to start looking at things in a different way.

What's happening with your current situation, in your own head? What are you trying to do? And what is your goal?

I know it's not easy to get to that place where you can really understand the way things really work, and how to manage stress.

I'm sure that we can all get there, if we really try to figure out what is really going on in our own heads, and learn to focus on things that really matter in our lives. The problem with a lot of people is that they get stuck thinking about the things that don't really matter. They stress out over things that really don't matter. But the fact is, you have the power to manage this.

3. Overthinking About Being Backward

For example, what if there's someone that we're trying to impress, and we're trying to impress that person because we're trying to show our power?

This is not an area where you should stress out over how to be successful, because what's going to happen is, they're going to probably want to keep you around, and keep you thinking that you're successful. And what happens if you stop thinking this way?

You've been focusing on thinking about what you're doing backwards. Let's say you started thinking about how you're succeeding. You probably would end up thinking about how much easier it would be to stop thinking about how you're succeeding.

If you can get to the point where you're focusing on what's going on right now, where are you going? Is this a great opportunity to get to the next level? Is this something that you have a chance of succeeding at? If you can get to this point, and stop worrying about what you're thinking about right now, you can get out of your current problem, and focus on something that actually matters in your life.

One way to get back to thinking in this way is to start visualising yourself in a different position. You can think about what it's going to be like to feel good, to have positive thoughts, to be in a good mood, and to have positive experiences. If you can do that, you'll get back into that headspace, and then you can start looking at what is going to actually happen in the future.

So you can see the world differently, and you can focus on what really matters. You can actually get into that state where you can deal with your current problems, and then come back to this state when you have other problems to deal with, and you can actually cope with these problems in a better way.

Let's stop worrying about what's going on right now. Instead, we can get into a positive headspace.

4. Learn What You Can Do

This is something that we're going to be doing for the rest of our lives. Learning things that we can actually do to make our lives better. You can learn to cook. You can learn to do the gardening. You can learn to cook delicious food. You can learn to be a good cook. You can learn to garden well. You can learn to do some pretty amazing things with the garden. If you're really interested in that, then that's something that you can really focus on.

You can start to learn some good things that you can actually do. You don't have to focus on doing things that you're not good at. You can just focus on doing things that you're actually good at.

The idea here is that we've been focusing on what we're actually good at. We've been focusing on learning good things that we can actually do. Not the bad things that we're actually not good at.

Let's focus on the good things that we can actually do in our lives right now. You've got to stop worrying about what's going to happen in the future, and start worrying about what you're thinking about right now.

When we start worrying about the things that we're actually doing right now, that actually takes some of the pressure off, and it actually helps to get us back into the positive mind-state.

That's the thing that we're always going to have to do for the rest of our lives. The things that we're actually doing right now. The things that we're actually thinking about right now. It's not going to take away the bad things. It's not going to make the bad things disappear, because we're always going to be worrying about the bad things, in the future. But it does mean that we get to focus on what really matters.

That's what I've tried to focus on. That's the advice that I would give you for how to get out of overthinking.

Let's do it altogether.