Overthinking — Loud Creativity Killer Inside the Mind
“Knock-knock, it’s your Soul speaking, stop overthinking” are the words of the first poem I ever wrote
When looking a few years back, I progressed a lot; I was such an overthinker when comes to me writing and publishing. It’s more than just not being able to make a decision or worrying about the past or the future which again causes anxiety and depression. There are more types of overthinking and figuring out which one is bothering you is half of the problem solved. For me, it was constant questioning and dwelling on myself when comes to my writings and my creative ideas that simply resulted in not doing it at all or deciding it was not good enough, so instead of the publish button, I’d press the delete button. Until I had enough; this poem was made named Soul Promises. If you are an overthinker, please visit the link, maybe can help you as much as it helped me. :)
Once I realized how hard it is to make a decision while overthinking every thought, in the mather my thoughts have thoughts, I knew I need to do something. First, I psychoanalyzed my destructive thinking patterns, writing them down and day by day working on the limiting beliefs they resulted. I notice a few of them are repeating like, “not good enough”, “not perfect enough”, “ it’s boring” and “I’m afraid”.
Five ways to cope with overthinking when making a decision
- Reframe your thought pattern — Overthinking can become a vicious cycle that keeps you hyper-focused on unproductive thoughts. Psychoalalize your situation, find the causes, and do something about them. Something you find easy and relaxing to be able to be your own “mind gatekeeper”, literally catching yourself overthinking to find out what’s your deal with it.
- Make a ritual — for me, it was creating a simple one like reading the poem Soul Promises because it’d always put me in a mindfulness state of meditation that I needed to push through with the current idea or project. For you, it can be something else, but every time you caught yourself in a negative thought process, you should do something that puts you in a different state of mind. Choose something you are good at.
- Remind your gently you always have a choice — while I was in the military, we had the whole academic program about decision making, and the most useful thing I learned from there is “some kind of decision is better than no decision at all”. The main thing is, to confront yourself with the choices you have and be brave in making decisions. You always have a choice.
- Remind yourself there is no such thing as perfection — delaying or not doing it at all was the result of my overthinking because I already “know” it’s not perfection. But, I’m just a perfectly unperfect human that made a choice and decided that my mind has no permission to play cruel games with me.
- Have patience and be honest with yourself — “Even Rome is not built overnight” and everybody overthinks sometimes. It’s important to do something about it before it becomes serious. If it keeps you up at the night for days you should look for professional help. Mental health is imperative here, a lot of strength is needed to admit to yourself you have a problem and even more to do something about it. But, if you are brave and honest enough, to can achieve right about anything, even stop overthinking.
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