A Post for the Overthinkers

“Nothing can harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded” — Buddha

It’s that time of night again — 10 pm when your head hits the pillow, and you prepare to drown in your thoughts. Doubting the decisions you made that day, reading into every little conversation you had, the weird look Karen gave you at lunch-time, and making up scenarios of the things that could go wrong in the future.

Overthinking is incredibly common, especially in a society where everyone strives to be perfect. Although everyone overthinks here and there, ruminating can be incredibly dangerous if you’re an obsessive over-thinker.

“if you try to control everything, and then worry about the things you can’t control, you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of frustration and misery.” — unknown

Most overthinking comes from things that are completely out of our control — and I think that’s why. When we can’t control the outcome, we are more ought to sit and worry about it in hopes that the worry and obsessive thinking are going to force the outcome to work out in our favour. Instead, we need to accept and recognize that if something is out of our control, we can’t change it — so have faith that you executed the situation in your best way possible, and move on.

Recognizing that this can be much easier said than done, I have come up with three different tips that can help you overcome the habit of overthinking.

LIVE IN THE MOMENT

Living in the moment allows your mind to step away from fear, let go of the past, and focus on the now rather than the future. By living in the moment, you are allowing your mind to focus on what truly matters — the present moment. You can’t change the past, and you can’t control the future, so the best way to live life is by focusing on the current time.

STOP WAITING FOR PERFECTION

Like I mentioned before, we overthink because we want everything to work out in our favour. We, as humans in today’s society, strive to be perfect and nothing less than. By expecting perfection, we are expecting everything to go as planned — but that’s where the hard truth comes in. Nothing in life will ever go as planned. Once we accept that we cannot achieve perfection, we are less likely to overthink because we’ve accepted that it’s impossible to do everything “right.”

ACCEPT YOUR BEST

A huge reason we overthink past scenarios is that we feel as though we could have done better. The only way to overcome this is to trust and have faith that you put forth your best in the situation. If you know you didn’t, then learn from it and do your best next time. Accepting your best allows your mind to be at ease with the outcome, no matter in your favour or not.

Changing a habit is not simple. It takes dedication, hard work, and trial and error. And that’s exactly what overthinking is — a habit. A habit that allows your mind to control your emotions and behaviours. A habit that only brings forth negativity.

It’s important to find ways that help you overcome overthinking if you want to live your life to the fullest.