The Art of Not Thinking

The greatest efforts in sports came when the mind is as still as a glass lake. — Tim Gallwey

I believe that smarter you are, the harder life is. I know this to be true because I was only 5 years old when I started questioning the world around me and I’ve had a least one existential crisis every year ever since. Fast forward through four decades of overthinking, I still don’t know the meaning of my life.

One lesson I learned recently is how easy life is when I don’t overthink. Overthinking for me leads to anxiety, depression, a freeze kind of feeling. Sometimes frustration, anger and sadness. Why can’t overthinkers be happy?

Overthinking leads to tension in the body. It is hard to do things right or feel good when the body is tense. The body doesn’t know if these things you are thinking in your head are happening for real or in your mind.

What is the art of not thinking? There is aTikTok trend where you throw an apple in the air and stab it with a fork. I got it on the 2nd attempt. Yet after I successfully stabbed the apple with the fork, I couldn’t do it again. I immediately started to overthink it. My body got tense. I tried to force it.

Here is a demonstration.

I analyzed this moment as well as some of my more recent skating performances where I felt calm and performed well vs my more disastrous skates and this is what good execution has in common:

1. Whatever you do, have no expectations. Do not think about the outcome. The minute you go into anything with an expectation, you are setting yourself up to fail or be disappointed.
2. Do not set intentions around outcomes either. Intentions should be things within your control. “I will only think of one element at a time” vs “I will skate a clean program.” See how the latter sets you up to fail? Now the body is tense because you have to be perfect.
3. Pay attention to the natural timing of things. Do not force behaviors, effort or movement. You don’t force walking or going up the stairs, do you?
4. Trust yourself. This is different than confidence. Confidence is a belief about something your future self will accomplish. Self-trust, especially in moments of difficulty or adversity, is how you build true confidence.
5. I always believed that focus requires effort. You should train your focus to be an effortless switch that you can turn on and off within a matter of breaths. Look at martial arts for clues on how to do this.

Hope this was helpful. Leave me a comment or share with someone you know is struggling with anxiety or depression — overthinking their life.