← The Mindset Mentor
The Mindset Mentor
How to Stop Overthinking in 6 Steps
00:21:09
Do you struggle with overthinking? In this episode, I’ll break down why your brain learned to overthink in the first place and share six practical steps you can use right now to calm your mind, rewire old patterns, and finally find peace.
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Today I'm going to be talking about overthinking, I'm going to be talking about why you overthink and I'm going to be giving you a six step process to actually stop overthinking. Because let's just call it what it is. Overthinking is a full time job that you have that has zero benefits to it and you run through every scenario in your head like it's life or death and you obsess over what you should have said or what you might do or what they're probably thinking about you or what could go wrong or what could happen or what could not happen. And you don't just Overthink the big things. You've been overthinking for so long that you don't just overthink the big things. You overthink the small things. You overthink everything. It has become a habit for you that is just like an addiction, and you have no idea probably how to break it. And it's not just a personality trait. It's also a nervous system adaptation that you have gotten from childhood in some sort of way. And over time, it has morphed and shift into something way bigger than. Than how it originated. And so I just want you to know that if you're an overthinker, join the club. That's like 90% of people in the world. And you're not broken, you're not indecisive, you're not too sensitive. It's just at some point in time, you have to understand. Probably in childhood, your brain learned that overthinking was safer than doing. And so just take a step back and think about that for a second. Your brain learned that to overthink something was safer than actually doing something. And chances are you learned it a long time ago. And it's probably coming from your childhood. And you know, in your childhood, something happened. Maybe you did something and you made a joke or you were loud, or you decided to dance in public, and you might have been reprimanded for it or scolded for it or made fun of for it or something in some sort of way. And you were. You felt a little bit of hurt in. In some sort of way from whatever that was, where you're reprimanded or scolded or made fun of, and it made you pause the next time, and you learned you needed to pause and think about what you were about to do. Because last time you didn't think about it and you just let your true self come out. You felt pain and you learned, well, you know what? I should probably think about this the next time I'm gonna do it. And so I want you to think about that. When in your childhood did you learn to overthink before you actually did something or so that you wouldn't do something? Like, when did you learn that what you did was wrong or that you messed up in some sort of way? Think about that for a second and then we'll dive into it, and it's gonna probably mold and shift as we go into today's episode. So let's dive into it, because I don't want to talk surface level with you. I don't Want you to just be like, oh, hey, stop thinking, stop overthinking. Don't worry about it, man, you got it. High five. Like, I don't want to talk about that. I want to actually find the roots of it. I want to try to pull it out of the roots with you. Okay, so let's start talking first off about why you overthink. You know, it kind of starts at childhood, like we were just talking about, you know, when you were little, your brain basically had one job, and your brain still has one job, and it's to keep you safe. It doesn't care about your happiness, doesn't care about your success. It doesn't care about your satisfaction. It's not here to help you take action. It's here to keep you safe. And in childhood, safety. The word safety and thinking about it wasn't just physical. It was definitely physical safety, but it's also emotional safety. And so if your parents were inconsistent or they were reactive or even overreactive, you might have learned to kind of tiptoe around your parents. You might have learned to kind of walk on eggshells around your parents so that you didn't do something, quote, unquote, wrong. You might have learned, you know, that you were praised only when you succeeded. And maybe you learned to obsess over things or, you know, you felt like maybe you were a burden, or you felt like you were too much or you were too loud or you were too emotional, and you learned to shrink in some sort of ways. When you look at this, what happens is you learn to over anticipate things that could happen, to kind of look into the future and say, okay, if I do this thing, this could happen. But also, I could get yelled at, I could get made fun of. I could be reprimanded in some sort of ways. And you learn to stop and pause before you took action and think about it, which, if you do it long enough, turns into overthinking. And so in this case, when you get hurt or scolded or made fun of or whatever it might have been, what does your nervous system do? Well, your nervous system learns to adapt. And it got really good at playing out every single possible scenario. Your brain and nervous system are like, hold on, let's stop for a second. Don't let your true self out. Don't be too loud. Don't be too emotional. Don't tell them what you actually feel. Don't dance in public. Don't run around in the rain. Whatever it might have been that happened, let me Pause for a second. Let me think about it. And it learned to adapt and to start getting really good at thinking. And then that thinking turns into overthinking. And that thinking is. Turns in overthinking turns into over overthinking. And you think to yourself unconsciously, if I can think through every possibility, I can stay safe. I can stay in control. And that's what you're really worried about. If I could stay in control of a situation, I can stay safe. And so in psychology, this is what we call hypervigilance. It's a trauma response where your brain becomes wired to constantly scan for threats, even when there's actually no threats that are present. And so overthinking is just basically your younger child that's still trying to protect you in some sort of way. You know, like, let's say I've heard of many different times where, like, a child is having a great time and they're dancing in public and they're having a whole lot of fun, and then their dad is like, hey, you're being too loud. Shut up. Or children are meant to be seen, not heard. And they learn, oh, I'm not accepted as I truly am. I need to be somebody different. And that inner child is still what's kind of running the show and trying to protect you. It is a survival strategy that is dressed up in adult clothes, basically. So then you think, well, what if I mess this up? Well, if I mess this up, there's going to be some sort of failure or there's going to be punishment that's going to pop up. Well, what if they're mad at me? Well, then I'm afraid of the fear of abandonment or the fear of rejection and fear of other people's opinions. You know, I need to find the perfect answer. If you think that in your head, maybe you have the fear of not being good enough or smart enough or being able to do the thing right. You know, if you think to yourself, like, what if I choose wrong? I have the wrong choice. Well, you know, it might be the fear of losing love from other people, or it might be the fear of scrutiny or the fear of approval. And so I want you to kind of really let this sink in. Like, your current overthinking right now as an adult is your childhood self trying to keep you safe in adult scenarios. Think about that for a second. It's you stuck at 7 years old, mentally at some place in your brain, trying to run adult scenarios and hopefully make things go well. You know, it's like Taking a seven year old and be like, hey, drive the car. You're not gonna let a seven year old drive the car. That's something that an adult should be doing, right? So your current overthinking is your childhood self that is stuck in time trying to keep you safe in current adult scenarios. And so you know, if you zoom in and you actually look at what's happening in your brain, there's a few different parts that are lighting up. There's the amygdala, which I talk about a lot. That's your fear center. That's where the fear comes from in your brain. That thing is scans for danger at all points in time, and then it's looking for what is wrong. What could I do wrong? What could be wrong? What dangers exist in my reality? And it triggers the fight flight, freeze or fawn response. And it gets hijacked easily when you're unsure or you're stressed, or you're emotionally activated, or you're noticing a pattern of something that may have happened before in the past. So that's the first thing that kind of lights up. The second part of your brain that lights up is the prefrontal cortex, which is your rational brain, which helps you plan and problem solve and make decisions. And so it gets hijacked when your amygdala is in overdrive. So it's saying, oh my God, there's something to fear. And let me think about all of the ways I could possibly get myself out of this thing that there might be that I'm triggered by in some sort of way. And so your amygdala is lighting up, your prefrontal cortex is lighting up. And then the other part of your brain that's lighting up is called the default mode network. It is your brain's daydream circuit. It activates during rest. But in overthinkers, they've actually found that it kind of runs wild. And so you think that you're resting, but your brain is going crazy. So it's your fear centers are lighting up, your planning centers and thinking centers are lining up. And then your daydreaming centers are lighting up as well, which is you daydreaming into the future. If I do this, this could happen. If I do this, this could happen. And you start basically thinking about all of the problems that could possibly happen or all the things that you could do wrong. And then you start thinking about them and you start overthinking them. And now you're stuck in this vicious circle of just nothing happening but your Brain is going a million miles a minute. And so what's really interesting when you look inside of the brain of somebody who's an overthinker is overthinking actually mimics productivity. So people who are overthinking actually feel like they're doing something helpful, like they feel like they're protecting themselves in some sort of way. But what it does is it increases the cortisol in your body, which is the stress hormone, which then keeps your body in this loop. So it's like you have something that triggers you. You start stressing out about it. Your brain starts to actually create more cortisol, that more cortisol creates more stress, which makes you more hyper aware, which makes you more likely to look out for things that could threaten you. And that's how this cycle of overthinking actually happens. So the more that you overthink, the more that you do this, and you start to do it over and over, it becomes a pattern and it becomes a habit. And as it becomes a habit, your brain and you do it more and more and more, your brain actually builds pathways for it, which means the more that you do it, the more likely you are to do it again and the more automatic it becomes. That's just a downward spiral, is it? That sounds like it sucks. I don't know about you, but after having a baby, my time is very limited. And when life is full, time is usually tight. Instacart helps you stay on track. Instacart is more than a grocery app. It's a care company that works around your schedule. 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You have to 20, 30, 40 years of patterns in neural pathways built up. This is about changing it over time. And it's about rewiring how you feel safe in the world. Because once Again, if you're 37 years old and this comes from an original moment at 7 years old, and obviously has happened many times since then, you have 30 years of patterns and habits where you don't necessarily feel safe in the world. I want to talk to you about how to actually help yourself feel more safe. So the first thing, step number one is what you need to do is you need to name what's really going on. What you need to do is ask yourself, what am I trying to protect myself from right now? Is it rejection? Is it being wrong? Is it being a failure? Is it being, is it feeling shame or guilt? Is it being ostracized or judged by other people? You have to understand if you are not doing something that you want to be doing, there's some sort of fear behind it. And so what you need to do is you need to find the fear, you need to bring it to the light. Because your overthinking is always just trying to protect you from something. So you're not crazy. What you're really just unconsciously trying to do is stay safe. Even if you consciously know that what you want to do is safe, unconsciously there's a part of you that's like, no, no, no. Remember when we were 7 years old and then 9 and then 10 and 12 and 14? All of these things happen. These could be happening in this moment. This is why you need to overthink and over plan. But you have to understand, at some point in time in your childhood, you did something. Maybe you got yelled at, you felt like your parents love was retracted from you or you were made fun of in class or something and you didn't like it. So you learn to question yourself to protect yourself. So you see that it's not something to battle, it's something that exists inside of you to protect you. And so what you want to do is you want to find the fear and you want to bring the fear to the light. Fear that is brought to the light immediately has less power over you. That's one of the things that I found with so many people is that as I'm coaching them and I'm working through them, like, you know, if we're on a live in mindset university and someone's saying, hey, I have trouble procrastinating and I'm overthinking and I say, okay, what are you afraid of? They're like, I'm not really sure. And we find out what they're afraid of and they write it down and they talk about it. They realize it's never as bad as their brain actually makes it out to be. And so that's the first step is you really need to understand, like in name, what is it that's going on inside of your head? Step number two is to soothe your nervous system before doing anything else. Like, you cannot think clearly from a dysregulated state. It's like when your Emotions are high, your logic is low. So you need to calm yourself down first. It could take two minutes, you know, before any big decision. Just do my favorite. And you don't. You could do any type of breathing, is just four, eight breathing. Breathe in for four seconds, breathe out for eight seconds, breathe in for four seconds into the nose for four seconds, out through the mouth for eight seconds. And then you can just shake your hands, shake your body. You can do some tapping, get your fists and have your fists go all over your body and you can tap out all of your muscles. Try to like get the cortisol out of your, out of your muscles. You can splash cold water in your face, you can go for a five minute walk. You know, movement is a nervous system reset. Basically what you're trying to do is you're just trying to change your state. You are in a fight or flight state and you're trying to get yourself out of that state before you do anything else. So you must get your nervous system out of that fight or flight so you can think clearly again. Test step number two, soothe the nervous system, Soothe it. Step number three is to externalize the chaos. Right? Chaos is usually all in your brain. Like overthinking thrives in your head. So you've got to get it out, you've got to get it out of your head. And so when you get clear on these things, clear like the clarity behind what's going on will usually strip it of its power. And so what I recommend is that you do a brain dump. You just get scrap, piece of paper, a new sheet of paper, whatever it is, and you dump every thought, every fear, everything that's running through your head, put it on paper, no filters, and put everything down. And then take another piece of paper and you want to draw a line down the middle of it. And the left side I want you to write down what I know is true, like absolute truth. And on the right side what you want to write down is what I'm assuming will happen or that I'm afraid of. So what I know is true on the left. On the right, what I'm assuming will happen or what I'm afraid of. And then what you do is you look at your list of everything that you're fearing and then you write down if any of them are true. Most of them are not, pretty much none of them will be most likely. And on the right hand side is what I'm assuming will happen or what I am afraid of. Most of your fears are going to line up in that category. And so you're going, oh, first off, I'm just noticing that I'm just making a whole bunch of assumptions. And so what this does is this helps your prefrontal cortex reengage and start sorting real data from fear stories. And a lot of times, once people put it all on paper and actually see it, I can't tell you how many times I've done this where I've had people take all of the chaos in their head and put it on paper and they're like, oh, no, this is bullshit. Like, I don't even believe this. Like, this is ridiculous. And so one of the things that's really, really important is actually put it on paper and externalize the chaos, because you'll realize it's. You'll get much more clear on it. A lot of times, it has a lot less power on you, over you, just by writing it down. So that's step number three. Step number four is to talk out loud to your inner protector. That overthinking voice that's going on in your head, Like I said, it's not your enemy. It's a scared part of you that's trying to protect you. It's the voice of that child that was wounded in your past in some sort of way and doesn't want you to be your true self and doesn't want you to. To dance in the rain because you got in trouble for it when you were six years old. So you want to speak to it. Like, speak out loud to the inner protector. And you can say stuff like, hey, I see you're trying to protect me. I know you're scared, but I've got this now. Like, I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. It's safe. I need you to chill out for a bit. And it's okay. It's not weird. You might think it's weird the first couple times, but it's not weird to talk to yourself out loud. You'll actually notice your nervous system start to calm down. And this is called inner re parenting. Like, giving yourself the emotional safety that you didn't get as a kid and that you might have not gotten in that moment where there was a breakaway from your true self. And so once you just see it as something that's trying to protect yourself, you don't see it as an enemy. It's not something that you need to be at battle with. It's just a scared part of you. It is a part of you. It will be there probably forever. It's just A scared part. And it's okay to be scared sometimes, but you just have to decide, like right now, I'm going to be brave. So that's step number four. And then step number five is to build trust through micro actions. Like, you don't. You don't overcome overthinking by thinking less or by thinking smarter. That's not really going to happen. You overcome it by acting more in small, consistent ways in the direction of the person of who you want to be. And every time that you make a choice to follow through, to do it anyways, to let go of I'm not good enough, you prove to your nervous system that it's safe to step outside of your comfort zone. And that starts to show your nervous system. It's okay to do the things that we're afraid of. We're not going to die. Maybe we can chill out a little bit. Action. And taking action breeds clarity. Overthinking just breeds more and more confusion. So that's step number five. And then step number six. The last step, just let it be messy. Like, you're not going to stop thinking overnight. You're literally trying to rewire decades of things that have kept you safe. And so it's going to be clunky, Let it be clunky, let it be imperfect. And you know, when you do something in the right direction, like celebrate your tiny wins, look for tiny bits of data to prove that you're safe, that you're doing it right so that you can see those and see, okay, I am safe. You know that. You can see that you can do things that you're afraid of. You can see that you can step out of your comfort zone. It might be that you still spiraled out of control, but this time it was for five minutes instead of two hours. That's a win. You made a decision to do something without asking three different people. You made your own decision. That's a win. You spoke up even when you were terrified and your voice was shaking. That's a win. Like, every one of those moments is a new neural pathway proving to yourself that it's safe. Every one of those moments is healing in some sort of way. And so I want you to understand, like, you're not broken because you're overthinking. You're brilliant. Like your overthinking brain, it's brilliant. It learned to anticipate, to predict, to avoid, to protect all, to keep you safe. But you're not in that old environment anymore. You know, you're not seven years old. Trying to decode your parents emotions. You're not nine years old thinking that you're too loud or you take up too much space. You're not 13 years old anymore trying to get love by being perfect in some sort of way. Like you're an adult now. And so what you get to do is you get to choose a new pattern. So the next time that your brain kicks into overdrive, just gently ask it like what are you trying to protect me from from? And then what do I want to believe instead? And then you pause and you breathe and you don't wait for permission, but you just talk to your old self and say, hey, I've got it. From here I'm going to be safe. We're going to do this together. And then you take one step in the right direction and then slowly but surely you'll start to re pattern yourself. So that is how you stop overthinking. If you love this episode, please share it with someone that you know and love. Share it on your instagram stories tag me obdial jr r o b D I A L J R and if you want to learn more about coaching with me outside of the podcast, you can go to coachwithrob.com to get some more information on different programs that I have. Once again, coachwithrob.com and with that I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.
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