1. Self-doubt and Second-guessing: You doubt yourself and second-guess your choices, leading to a lack of self-confidence.
2. Physical Tension and Restlessness: Being stuck in your head can manifest as physical symptoms like tense muscles, headaches, difficulty sleeping, and a feeling of restlessness.
3. Lack of Focus: You find it challenging to concentrate on tasks or stay focused on conversations, as your mind wanders off into different thoughts and scenarios.
4. Persistent Worry: You’re dwelling on potential negative outcomes and excessive worry about past, present, or future events.
5. Analysis Paralysis: You get bogged down in making decisions, constantly weighing pros and cons, playing out hypothetical scenarios, and fearing potential negative outcomes.
6. Difficulty Letting Go: You get caught in repetitive thought patterns, replaying past situations or conversations, and obsessively focusing on perceived mistakes or regrets.
7. Overanalyzing conversations: You turn over conversations in your mind, reading into every word, tone, and gesture, searching for hidden meanings or potential conflicts.
8. Inability to Relax or Be Present: Your busy mind keeps you from fully engaging in activities or connecting with others.
9. Mental and Emotional Exhaustion: You feel mentally drained, overwhelmed, and emotionally exhausted (and possibly irritated or frustrated) from the mental chatter and heightened stress levels.
10. Perfectionism: You tend toward perfectionism, setting high standards for yourself and feeling anxious or dissatisfied if you think you fall short.
Overthinking is pretty much an epidemic, but what should we do about it?
The question to ask yourself is how much is it affecting your mental health, well-being, performance, and happiness? Enough that you want to do something about it?
The writer, Nitya Prakash, writes “While you were overthinking, you missed everything worth feeling.” To me, that’s the real concern – not just the missing out on feeling, but the missing out on being the better version of yourself.
Most experts suggest solutions like mindfulness or spending more time in nature as solutions to overthinking. Those things have benefits, but they don’t get to the heart of the problem.
My next release will offer a practical and countercultural solution to this common problem. Follow me to make sure you get it.
#leadershipdevelopment #mindset #emotional intelligence #performance