Overthinking? A fear response in disguise.

Overthinking gets a bad reputation.

Like it’s some annoying personal trait you should snap out of.

But in my experience?

It’s never just about “thinking too much.”

Overthinking happens when your brain doesn’t feel safe to move forward.

It kicks in when you’re scared to get it wrong.
When you’re quietly worried about disappointing someone – or letting yourself down.
When there’s a real or imagined risk you’ll be judged, misunderstood, or exposed.

So your mind tries to protect you by going over everything. Again and again.
And again.

What if everybody hates it?

What if I’ve missed something?

What if it goes t**s up?

And in trying to cover all the angles, you get stuck.

You’ll say it’s because you care. You desperately want to get it right.

Because doing the right thing is important to you.

But what else is happening?

You’re doing everything you can to avoid regret or rejection (the close cousins of shame, humiliation and embarrassment).

So I encourage you to notice what you’re afraid of. Whenever I do this, I realise it’s rarely about the decision itself. It’s more about what I’m making that decision mean to me. Will I be wrong? Will it fail? What if I get trolled? In other words is everybody going to be laughing at me behind my back?  It’s that thought that keeps me overthinking. 

So I choose a better thought.

Because my self-sabotage serves nobody. Least of all me.

And then? I do one small thing to move forward.