Overthinking: One Thing You’re Doing To Undermine Your Confidence
Do You Ever Spend Too Much Time Overthinking Something?
Have you ever spent too much time on Netflix trying to find the “right” show to watch? I know that I’ve spent hours looking only to realize that I could have watched an entire episode or movie by now. How about spending too much time on Amazon deciding between an unlimited amount of options? Overthinking is pretty common in our culture, and honestly, it’s probably gotten worse since we have more choices than ever before. There are countless majors, careers, romantic options, and decisions to choose from. What do we end up doing when we’re flooded with an endless amounts of options?
Ruminate.
Ruminating is when you obsess over the same details over and over again without getting any further in making a decision. I’ll give some examples of areas that people commonly ruminate about.
Should I pick a new job or stay at my old one? I hate my current job, but I get a lot of good benefits. The thought of doing something new is really exciting, but I’m worried that I’ll make the wrong decision…
Should I get married to my partner or stay single? I’ve always desired companionship and enjoy being in a relationship, but I honestly feel restricted by having to check all of my major decisions by a partner…
Do I want to be a lawyer or a carpenter? Well, I’m good at analyzing little details and memorizing, but I hate going to school. I enjoy working with my hands, but I worry that I’ll get bored over time…
Ruminating usually starts off like the examples I gave above. You’re weighing the pros and cons, appreciating the differences between decisions, and trying to lay the groundwork for making a choice. I call this the Analyzing Phase. In the Analyzing Phase, you are focused on gathering information with the purpose of making a choice. When things are going well, you stay in the Analyzing Phase long enough so that you’re prepared to make a decision. In the next phase, the Decision Phase, you’re focused on implementing a choice and committing to a path. Going back to the above examples:
I’m going to actively pursue a new job. I know that my current position is pretty stable, but I’m already getting burned out, and I know that this is only going to get worse year by year. Because of that, I am going to take steps towards preparing myself for a different career field.
I want to stay single and will break up with my partner. Given that my partner and I have different values and preferences, I don’t believe that I’m comfortable committing to this person in a lifelong relationship. I could feel different in the future or if I was dating someone different, but this is how I feel right now.
I am going to become a carpenter because I believe that this career will suit me for at least the next 5 to 10 years, and then later on I can evaluate whether I want to pursue a career with more education.
The normal trajectory for making decisions follows a three step process.
Step One: Identifying a conflict (Identifying Phase).
Step Two: Gathering Information on how to resolve a conflict (Analyzing Phase).
Step Three: Implementing a decision to resolve the conflict (Decision Phase).
Overthinking happens when you get stuck in step two of the process, the Analyzing Phase.
Signs You Are Overthinking
You continually reanalyze the same details over and over again.
This is where you’ve had the same thoughts, conversations, and behaviors to gather information but have still not committed to a decision. You might have talked to a dozen people about how to make the choice. The conversations with these people, and yourself, feel repetitive and monotonous, because, well, they are! You are getting no closer to making a decision and you might actually be feeling more indecisive the more people you ask or the more you think about it.You feel less and less confident about making a decision.
In normal decision making, you should be feeling more and more confident as you consider the options. Overthinking makes you feel less confident in your decisions. When people feel less confident in their decisions, this leads them to panic and dread making a choice.You are thinking about the decision in a black and white way.
Most decisions in life are not life or death. When you’re overthinking, you become so afraid of making the “wrong” choice that you become paralyzed in fear. In reality, there is no such thing as a “perfect” decision. If you are trying to find the “perfect” decision, the end result is that you’re going to be overwhelmed and upset because the “perfect” decision can change over time. There is no decision that you can commit to now that will guarantee that you will not regret it later. Since you can’t see the future, there isn’t a way that you could figure out the “best” decision for any given circumstance. This means that you can make well informed decisions, but not “perfect” ones.You are procrastinating.
People freeze when they feel overwhelmed, stuck, or paralyzed by a decision. You can feel so worried about the consequences of your decisions that you simply decide to distract yourself and avoid making a choice. This makes you feel even worse because you will then start developing dread about making a choice. Dread will then make you even more reluctant to commit to a decision.You are asking too many people for advice.
Usually, asking people for advice should have a clarifying and beneficial impact on how to make a decision. Even if you don’t ultimately follow the advice of others, it at least gives you an alternate perspective to consider when making a choice. The problem with overthinking is that it causes you to seek out the advice of others as a solution to your indecision as opposed to a support for helping you make a decision. If you are trying to make an important life decision for yourself, then you need to take responsibility for that decision and not pawn it off to someone else.Everyone falls into the trap of overthinking at some point. The good news is that there are several strategies you can use to break free.
How To Stop Overthinking
Make a well informed decision instead of a “perfect” decision
I don’t believe that it’s possible to make a “perfect” decision or a “best” decision for most major life choices. Making a decision as an 18 year old will feel different than making a decision as a 30 year old. It’s impossible to make a decision that will perfectly satisfy you at all times of your life. As an example, I committed to going to undergraduate and graduate school in Chicago. At the time, those were good decisions that continue to serve me well. However, now that I’m older, I wish that I moved to a different city for college because I developed a love for traveling after graduate school. There was no way that I could have known how my future self would feel when I made those decisions, and that’s fine. I still made a well-informed decision at the time when I considered everything in front of me.Stop yourself from ruminating
If you’re having the same conversations, self-talk, and thoughts, then you need to draw attention to yourself being repetitive. Repetitive thoughts waste time and energy and get you no closer to making a decision. Instead of repetitive thoughts, challenge yourself to think about either new options or perspectives. If you have gathered enough information, then push yourself to make a choice.Limit and clarify your options
If you rule out a certain path forward, then don’t reanalyze that choice unless there has been a significant change of perspective. Reanalyzing recently made decisions undermines confidence and makes you feel less sure of yourself. It’s also a huge waste of time to repeatedly reconsider options that you are actually not interested in.Focus on the most important deciding factors of a choice
When making an important choice, you need to learn how to prioritize the things most important to you. If you’re going to consider whether to take a new job, then you need to spend your time contemplating the main reasons for why you are considering a transition. If commute time, PTO, and stock options are not important to you, then you should not be spending a lot of time focusing on them when trying to make a choice.Take responsibility for your own decision
It’s always important to be receptive to feedback and willing to listen to other people’s perspectives on your decisions. With that being said, it’s also important to realize that other people give you advice based off of who they are and what they prefer. The choices that would please your friends and family if they were in your circumstance are not necessarily the choices that would please you. Knowing this, you have to make a decision based off of who you are and what you can live with, and this is only something you can decide for yourself. Additionally, you are completely responsible for the consequences of decisions that other people make for you.Don’t wait for a feeling of complete peace in your choice
Since you can never know what the “best” decision is, you can’t expect to feel “perfect peace” when making a big life choice. Now, you can eventually feel confidence that you made the best decision with the current information in front of you, but that only comes from trusting your own decision making process and not overthinking.
Indecision is a decision
If you are deciding to procrastinate about a choice, reframe this in your mind as you making the decision to be inactive. If you ask someone if they want to get married or date you and they say “I don’t k(no)w”, then the answer is actually no. The answer is no because at the end of the day, they are not actually dating you. If you are choosing between two job offers and you wait long enough that one job offer expires, then you decided to decline the job. Don’t allow yourself to avoid taking responsibility for a decision by procrastinating.Set a deadline
Giving yourself an unlimited amount of time to make a decision encourages procrastination and avoidance. Giving yourself a time limit forces you to trust your intuition and massively cuts down on dread.Push yourself to make a decision
If you have fully considered the circumstance in front of you and have analyzed all of the important facets of this decision, then you need to transition out of the Analyzing Phase. You might feel uncomfortable or unprepared transitioning to making a decision, but that’s fine. Becoming more confident is about learning to trust your ability to gather information and make informed decisions than it is about always feeling assured in your decision. Even if you feel uncomfortable at first, making this a practice will help build your confidence over time and help you learn how to trust your own judgement.Questions And Challenges For You To Consider:
What areas of life do you overthink?
How do you make a well-informed decision? How is this different than a “perfect” decision?
What strategies and tips from this article do you need to start using?
