Don't Overthink It - Anne Bogel Page 0,6

that characterize a helpful thought life, the ones that will keep that vehicle running well for a long time. Getting your thought life under control may feel hard—perhaps so hard it doesn’t seem possible. But I invite you to consider that, here at the beginning, it’s hard right now.

This Won’t Stay Hard Forever

A few years ago, when one of my kids was in tutoring, I was invited to sit in on a session where the tutor ran my child through a challenging numbers exercise. (As in, I had a hard time keeping up.) After my child stumbled through the first column of numbers, the tutor asked if they could try the next harder column together.

My child said, “I think that’s too hard.” No whining, no complaining—just a simple statement of fact. He thought he couldn’t do the work. I wasn’t bothered by it.

But the tutor reflexively fired back with, “It’s too hard right now.”

He explained that as my child continued to build his skills, that column wouldn’t be hard anymore. They would learn how to do it, together. It’s hard today, but it won’t stay that way.

Before we left that day, the tutor pulled me aside for a second. He explained how important it is for kids to believe in their core that they can get better and that if they practice, exercises that are nearly impossible today will be possible tomorrow.

“I make my students do hard things,” he said, “but those hard things don’t stay hard.” With practice, those hard things become doable. Soon enough, they’ll become second nature.

Learning to think well is a process. Some strategies are simple to implement, while others are harder. Some really will feel like hitting a button, while others will require perseverance. Adopting new mental practices and patterns of thought may feel daunting at first, and it’s no wonder. In The Chemistry of Calm, Dr. Henry Emmons, an integrative psychiatrist who advocates a holistic approach to mental health problems like depression and anxiety, writes that it’s no surprise we feel our current “wild mind” state is our natural way of being. He writes, “Since childhood we have spent many of our waking hours reinforcing our habits of thought. We empower them through attention and repetition. Anything that we practice this consistently we will eventually get good at.” We’ve become good at overthinking, thanks (or no thanks) to all the practice we’ve put in.

That’s why we need to start practicing new strategies—and as we practice new ways of thinking and reinforce new habits of thought, we will become much better at not overthinking.

One Small Step at a Time

Getting caught up in overthinking is a vicious cycle. As Emmons explains, “Many of us strengthen unhealthy nerve circuits through repetitive practice. Every time we repeat a fearful or defeatist thought, we strengthen the connections that make it easier to have that thought again.” In other words, the more we overthink, the easier it is to keep overthinking.

We have to break the cycle, and we can do that by starting small. Nolen-Hoeksema’s research affirms the effectiveness of this strategy. She writes, “Doing something small toward solving our problem often is a foot-in-the-door technique. That small effort makes it easier to get the other foot, and eventually our whole body, in the door. Little victories accumulate until soon we begin to see the end to a problem, and how to get there.”

Here’s what this can look like in action: a few years ago, a friend was facing a major change in her children’s schooling, and she was freaking out about all the options, particularly because this topic had been a huge source of worry in the past. She talked to dozens of parents, checked out stacks of books from the library, and began researching different pedagogical approaches. She quickly became overwhelmed, feeling like she’d need a graduate degree and a fully articulated philosophy of education before she could decide, which would take more time than she had. She lay awake at night running through all the options in her mind, all the possibilities about what could go wrong.

On the verge of a total meltdown, she sought my help because she knew I’d faced a similar choice the year before. I suggested she take it one step at a time. It was okay that she didn’t have a fully formed plan right that moment. She could take the next step—a small and doable one—on the path to clarity. And she did. Before the day was over, she had scheduled