This video will stop the cycle of your constant overthinking

Summary

• When we find ourselves overthinking, it's important to understand that while some situations merit deep thought, not all decisions require such intense scrutiny.
• We need to distinguish between productive and unproductive overthinking and practice decision-making skills to avoid feeling overwhelmed by choice.
• Overwhelm often results from high demands coupled with a lack of clarity; we impose rigid 'musts', 'shoulds', and 'have-tos' on ourselves that can be counterproductive.
• To combat overwhelm, first, identify and challenge any unrealistic self-imposed rules or expectations by reframing them into more realistic, flexible thoughts.
• The language we use can escalate our emotions, so choosing our words carefully can help deescalate feelings of overwhelm and anxiety.
• If we lack clarity, seeking advice from a mentor or role model can help us determine a course of action. It's better to take imperfect steps than no steps at all.
• Embrace a mantra that encourages imperfect action, such as "Do it wrong, do it imperfectly," which can help reduce anxiety and break the cycle of overthinking.
• Employ 'productive distraction' by engaging in activities that occupy your mind and prevent overthinking. This can be more effective than trying to force yourself to think through your overthinking.
• People who overthink often have too much time on their hands. Stay busy with action-oriented tasks to avoid creating problems where there are none.
• Don't label yourself as an overthinker; consider it a lack of experience in managing your thoughts. Thought management is a skill that can be developed with practice.
• Finally, recognize that our brains can work against us, but with effort and intention, we can train them to help us achieve success.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest implementing these steps to stop overthinking and get more things done. First, recognize when you're making mountains out of molehills. Not all decisions need lots of thought. Some choices, like picking out a dress or deciding on a diet, shouldn't make your head spin.

If you're feeling buried in "must-dos", "shoulds", and "have-tos", it’s time to change that. Ask yourself if what you think you must do is actually true. Maybe you can be more flexible. For example, instead of saying, "I must have more money now," say, "I'd like more money but I'm working on it."

Be careful with how you talk about problems. Words like "devastated" can make you feel worse than you need to. Try to see tough times as challenges, not disasters.

When you're not sure what to do next, talk to someone who's been there. If you can't talk to them directly, think about what they would do. It's better to take an imperfect step than to do nothing.

Remember, it’s okay to get things wrong sometimes. Tell yourself, "Do it wrong, do it imperfectly," to ease the pressure. Making mistakes is part of life, and it helps you learn.

Then, instead of sitting and thinking too hard, do something else that's useful. It's called productive distraction. It could be exercising, cooking, or working on a hobby. This helps clear your mind.

Keep your days busy with action, so you don't have time to create problems that aren't there. Staying active keeps the overthinking away.

Lastly, don't call yourself an overthinker. It's just that you’re still learning how to manage your thoughts. Practice makes perfect here.

Remember, you can train your brain to help you succeed. It takes effort, but each small step gets you closer to where you want to be.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"Overthinking is really unproductive thinking"

– Leila Hormozi

"If you want to decrease overwhelm around the overthinking, the first one is identifying what are the musts, shoulds, have to that you're imposing upon yourself"

– Leila Hormozi

"The great thing about taking action is if you take the wrong action, you can correct it later"

– Leila Hormozi

"Do it wrong, do it imperfectly"

– Leila Hormozi

"Rather than identifying yourself as somebody who's an overthinker… identify with being inexperienced in the skill of managing your thoughts"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

if you ever find yourself overthinking anxious stressed then in this video today what I want to do is share with you how to overcome that and the Frameworks that help you break that cycle for good overthinking is really unproductive thinking sometimes overthinking can be good it can help us in situations it can help us think through really long-term decisions that have a long tail for example if you want to start a business picking what industry are you going to serve what product are you going to sell that warrants a lot of thinking and I think that that would be an appropriate time to overthink whereas on the other side a situation that wouldn't warrant overthinking would be something like the dress you're going to wear to a date what diet you're going to go on to lose weight an unmanaged mind will constantly overthink to learn what to do instead of overthinking is a skill now we just have to learn in what situations does it work and in what ones does it not work and then in the ones it doesn't work in what can we do instead I have a framework that I like to use for overwhelm overwhelm tends to be high demand with lack of clarity there's self-imposed demands it's all these have to musts shoulds that we put on ourselves and those are creating the high demand and then we have a lack of clarity meaning we are not sure what action to take and typically the reason that we have a lack of clarity is we've never done something before it is an unknown we aren't able to predict it so if you want to decrease overwhelm around the overthinking the first one is identifying what are the musts shoulds have to that you're imposing upon yourself that are creating such a high demand it's creating such a sense of urgency and importance for you to do something there's a term used by Albert Ellis which is called like musturbation which is like thinking of like the must shoulds have to humans like to create rules but over time those rules and rituals can start not to serve us when they have us rather than we have them they dictate Our Lives the best thing for you to do is to identify what are those thoughts that you're telling yourself one thing that I I don't find helpful is that if you have a thought that says I should be making more money by now you could say you know what I would like to have more money by now but I know that it takes time and with enough hard work and effort I will eventually get there that's a much more realistic thought it's identifying the musts shoulds and have toos and then exchanging them for realistic thoughts another way that we do this is the language that we use so for example I had a woman reach out to me and tell me that she was devastated because she was heartbroken that her and her boyfriend broke up and I said you are devastating yourself by the language you are using about this you were dating somebody the two of you broke up the breakup wasn't fun itself but you can see it as a great Challenge and you can get through it and become a better person for it that's probably a realistic perspective of the situation but to identify as devastated and heartbroken that increases the overwhelm and the demand we put on ourselves because it's escalating our already emotional situation that we're having if you can get rid of all the must shoulds and have to and you can get rid of all the absolutes you will find out that you can deescalate your emotions just by how you talk about them now the second route is understanding that it's typically lack of clarity you have a lot of Demand on yourself and a low ability to figure out what the direction is typically it's because you're in a situation where you haven't made a decision like this before or you are not able to predict what needs to happen next and so what I would suggest doing is in those situations seeking out somebody as a idol as a mentor as a coach whatever level of access you can get to somebody who has been in your situation before if they are an idol reverse engineer what they would be doing in your situation or if they are c-ter Mentor ask them what steps would you take in my situation sometimes the wrong steps are better than no steps because in this situation we just need you to take action the great thing about taking action is if you take the wrong action you can correct it later I had this Mantra I say to myself whenever I'm feeling incredibly overwhelmed and I'm feeling like there's so much going on typically what I what I realize when I pull myself out of the situation is like wow I'm expecting myself to do so much that that it almost guarantees a bad outcome because it's just an overwhelming amount of work or things to think about what I repeat to myself in those situations is do it wrong do it imperfectly because what I've realized is that when the goal is to be perfect it increases our anxiety about the situation and then actually the outcomes tend to be worse the brain is paradoxal it typically wants to do you know if you tell it don't look at the elephant it looks at the elephant if you find yourself like caught up and trying to be perfect trying to do everything right all the time just remind yourself like it's okay to do it wrong it's okay to be imperfect and I think that commanding yourself do it wrong do it imperfectly is a powerful statement to break us out of that anxious cycle where we're constantly overthinking and overwhelming ourselves so the next tool and probably my favorite tool when it comes to overthinking is the act of doing something else I call this productive distraction what most people do is they're like I'm locking myself in my room I'm not doing anything I've I've got to think through my overthinking I'm like okay that makes a lot of sense let's think through the overthink thinking which is just amplifying the cycle of overthinking what you want to do is put yourself in an environment that makes it harder to overthink than easier the best thing you can often do is find something else to do for a couple hours and then come back to it and see how different you feel and you know sometimes it's not perfect there's some days where I just celebrate that I was able to do the productively distracting activity if you are thinking about something specifically that's in front of you right now it is very hard to overthink about something else so if I'm riding a motorcycle in four lanes of traffic it's pretty hard to think about this other thing going on with my girlfriend people who have the tendency to overthink also tend to have more time than others the people who are taking action constantly have less time to overthink things if you have too much time you almost create problems that aren't there due to your overthinking there was a study done and it was basically on identifying prisoners in groups of faces that people saw and they said identify how many people in here are prisoners you know I think people identified like X percentage of the group it might have been like 60 % of the group were felons right and then they reduced the amount of felons in the next group when they showed them and what they found is that the human brain still found the same amount of felons even though there were less and so what you find is that your brain finds the same amount of problems no matter what the situation is and no matter how many actual problems exist it will create them out of nothing if there's nothing good have you ever had a neighbor they keep calling the HOA complaining to the HOA it's like every day and they're talking about how you're a problem you left your trash out the bush is not trimmed you know your car is on the driveway and they call them day after day after day those people often are retired they don't have a job they've got nothing to do and so in their life you are the biggest problem that exists so I think a lot of people look at overthinking as a problem in reality what I think it is is that a lot of people actually just don't have the skill of managing how they think and so rather than identifying yourself as somebody who's an overthinker or who has a problem that they need to solve why don't you just identif identify with being inexperienced in the skill of managing your thoughts because it is a skill that takes practice and takes time I lack the skill of managing my thoughts from time to time and so I will overthink and I'm working on acquiring the skill of managing my thoughts so that I can reduce how much I overthink there's a lot of ways our brain can get in our own way in fact it feels like it's constantly trying to do the opposite of what we wanted to there's also a ton of ways that you can learn how to manage your brain and help it gear you towards success and that's what I talk about in my other video how I brainwashed myself to success