Don't Overthink It - Anne Bogel Page 0,7

a school tour and felt much better.

When we’re overthinking, the easiest thing to do is keep overthinking. To stop the cycle, we need to interrupt these thought patterns, and we can do that by taking a small step in the right direction. Then it becomes easier to take another right step, and another.

Getting caught up in overthinking may be a vicious cycle, but extracting yourself is a virtuous one. As Emmons says, “If we can stop reinforcing these [negative] patterns by repeated thought, they will gradually weaken. And soon we are able to create new, healthier neural circuits to take the place of the old ones.”

As you begin to learn new strategies, my advice—which you’ll often see repeated in this book—is to pick a small step and get moving. Pick one thing you can do to begin to disrupt the cycle, even if it’s a very small thing. As you move forward, implementing the strategies in this book, trusting the process, you will loosen the hold overthinking has on you. You’ll see your confidence and knowledge grow, and as they do, the next steps will become easier.

You are not doomed to a life of overthinking. Trust the process, and get ready for your next step.

Next Steps

The way we see ourselves has enormous implications for how we live our lives. When it comes to overthinking, how do you currently see yourself? Fill in these blanks:

1. I am the kind of person who

2. How would you like to see yourself in the future?

3. I would like to be the kind of person who

3

Watch What You’re Doing

Certainty is missing the point entirely.

Anne Lamott

When my husband was a kid, he faced a recurring dilemma. Whenever his mom went to Target, she invited him to come along, knowing he enjoyed exploring the toy aisle, picking out the family cereal, and maybe buying a pack of baseball cards with his allowance.

Will loved shopping at Target. But not as much as playing with friends in the neighborhood. He wanted to go to Target, but he didn’t want to miss the opportunity to play with a friend. Will’s greatest fear was that he would return home from an otherwise fun shopping trip to learn a friend had called with an invitation while he’d been out.

Every time his mom invited him to come with her, he had to choose: Should he go to the store or stay home in case a friend became available to play?

His mom would wait, with growing impatience, while he deliberated. He was persistently torn between the two options.

I’ve heard Will tell his childhood tale of Target angst a hundred times, and it always makes people laugh. It’s funny, sure, but also—we get it. He was suffering from analysis paralysis, that state in which we overthink things to such a degree that we are completely unable to decide. We’ve all been there—and not just when we were kids. Let’s be honest, we grown-ups have way more experience overthinking than your typical seven-year-old.

While it’s easy to see Will’s behavior for what it was, analysis paralysis isn’t always so easy to recognize in our own lives. We lack the perspective to see our own behavior clearly; we’re too close, too caught up in it, to recognize when our own thought patterns become problematic. We may see our behavior as completely rational and fail to realize that the decision-making styles we rely on—and assume are more or less serving us well—are, in fact, incredibly hospitable to overthinking.

In order to change our overthinking ways, we have to notice the ways we’re overthinking. We need to watch what we’re doing, observing our own behavior with a measure of the same objectivity we have for Will’s childhood self.

Spotting the Signs of Analysis Paralysis

Analysis paralysis is one of the most common manifestations of overthinking. When we’re in its grip, the problem is not the underlying decision itself but the way we approach it. Instead of helping us solve the problem, our mental habits make us more entrenched in indecision.

Analysis paralysis is dangerous because, left alone, it will never resolve itself. We can’t think our way out of it. Unless we recognize what’s happening and intervene, we will remain stuck.

Common signs of analysis paralysis include:

Repeatedly putting off decisions until later

Postponing a decision in hopes that a better option will present itself

Seeking more options when we already have enough

Constantly reviewing the same information we’ve already gathered

Fearing we will make the wrong decision

Waiting so long to decide that we miss the opportunity to do so

Second-guessing