13. Overthinking

Are you an overthinker - stuck in the frustrating loop of wanting to take action but being held back by the pursuit of perfection or the overwhelming array of choices?

In this episode I tackle overthinking head on, exploring how it manifests itself, how our fears get in the way of our progress and how to gain the clarity and control to move forward.

I cover:

• Overthinking and procrastination
• How our minds can get stuck on a loop
• Different manifestations of overthinking include perfectionism and a busy mind
• Tools and techniques to minimise overthinking, such as meditation, visualisation, and journaling
• Clarity and setting positive intentions

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Chapters

• 0:00 Overcoming Overthinking and Taking Action
• 12:23 Unlocking Clarity and Overcoming Fear

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Becoming Fearless, the personal growth podcast for you if you are ready to overcome fear and step into your greatness. Our purpose is to help you overcome your limits, have loads of fun along the way, unlocking your fullest potential in life, business, health and relationships every single day. I'm your host, charlotte Carter, a high performance coach and entrepreneur with over 20 years experience. I'm your host, charlotte Carter, a high-performance coach and entrepreneur with over 20 years experience. I've supported many highly driven, talented people like you who dream big and are ready to take action to overcome what's holding them back. Each week, my guests and I will be sharing hacks and habits on how to build self-belief, courage and confidence, to master your mindset and navigate your emotions so that you can reach your human potential in a way that feels light, fun and easeful and helps you become fearless. Let's go. Hello and welcome to another episode of Becoming Fearless. This one is a solo episode and it's simply called Overthinking. Interestingly, lots of our other podcast episodes have got longer titles, but this one I was like yes, that is what we're going to call it. People will know quite clearly what it is about. Let's not overthink the title. So this is a topic that I really want to share bits of pieces and insights with you over the kind of things that have come up time and time again with clients that I work with and on my own personal journey in the world of the mind, in the world of the energy, in the world of fear.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Overthinking is really a pattern that so many entrepreneurs have. It is something that is part of their patterns for success in some level. It's something that they see within themselves as something that's going to happen. It's also something that causes major frustration, major annoyance with oneself. It's like I can't believe. I'm still thinking about how I'm going to do this, that and the other. It's also best friends with procrastination. Best friends with procrastination. So people can tell themselves that they're in the overthinking part of their plan and in reality, they are simply procrastinating.

Speaker 1: 2:28

So let's talk about overthinking. What it is in terms of our life and our mindset is that our mindset has got stuck on a loop. We are thinking the same thought that we had the day before or the hour before or the minute before and we are searching desperately sometimes, for a different answer. We're still searching for a different answer. We haven't done anything differently. We are just expecting a new answer to drop in. So we overthink things, we tweak things. This is what one of my great mentors I remember her using the phrase procrastinate planning. I'm like, yes, this is what one of my great mentors I remember her using the phrase procrastinate planning. I'm like, yes, this is what we do in our head. We are overthinking what if, what if, what if? And it's also usually what if I do this? Will this happen? What if I do this? Will this happen?

Speaker 1: 3:18

It's very closely linked to control or self-protection or a lot of those kind of ways that people keep themselves small, people stop themselves in their track, people allow themselves to hide behind the overthinking in some way, shape or form. So I run a masterclass which is really interesting. It's just called Do the Thing, and Do the Thing is quite simply about what is it that's going on for you? Why are you overthinking? Why are you procrastinating? What's the focus on? What's the fear that you're really hiding around the overthinking?

Speaker 1: 3:57

Now, for some people listening, overthinking is part of their perfectionist traits. One of my clients that I worked with for a number of years. This was a big theme for her. It was a big theme, this perfectionist. She had to get it right. It was a part of what she had to work through and a part of her creativity and a part of how she showed up to the world. Once this was explored, resolved and transformed as a fear and she could walk with it, she was able to allow herself to just do the thing more and more and more and do the thing in different ways and loosen some of the control or loosen some of the rigidity of some of the things that she did. And with that came the ease, came the flow, came the joy, came the excitement and ultimately came more creativity. So she started to see the benefits of being able to get a handle on this overthinking.

Speaker 1: 4:51

For other people it shows up in like what I would call like a cotton wool fuzzy type of mind. Their mind is very, very, very busy. They have a million and one thoughts and this is totally me A million and one thoughts all the time what about this, this, this, this and this? And coupled with the overthinking, there's an element of you know like well, I'm in this analysis paralysis, of you know like well, I'm in this analysis paralysis. I have so many thoughts, there are so many possibilities, there are so many options. I can't do the thing, because I haven't. I just I'm paralyzed as to which one's going to pick. And ultimately there are other fears that are coupled with those kind of things, because there's all the um fear not good enough, fear of rejection, fear of comparisonitis, fear of the unknown, fear of change a million and one fears.

Speaker 1: 5:45

So this is kind of like a common overthinking is a common way that people will have to navigate their own mindset and, ultimately, how they take action and how they build habits. So the mind loves habits, it craves habits, it craves routine, it loves it. It loves it when you can do things that are predictable. So so many of the overthinking is that we're going against the mind, we're going against this natural way of creating habits. We're making things hard for ourselves in so many of these occasions and many of us would love to change it.

Speaker 1: 6:27

So when I approach overthinking with people, I always go back to let's break it down, let's look at the building blocks of what it is that you are trying to achieve. What is your focus, what is your desired outcome and what are the steps that in an ideal world, when your mind is playing game, when in an ideal world that you could follow, what would you be doing? How would you be showing up? How would you feel? Would you be doing stuff in the morning, the afternoon, the evening? Would you be having something hold you accountable? Would you be doing stuff in the morning, the afternoon, the evening? Would you be having somebody hold you accountable? Would you be setting a timer for it? All of those kind of things that you can create your habits and increase your productivity around how your mind works and when it's most aligned to getting stuff done. So overthinking.

Speaker 1: 7:16

Ultimately, the answer to overthinking is clarity. We overthink because we are unsure, we are unclear, we are nervous, we are afraid. But when we get clarity and when we set positive intentionality around the clarity, then we can be bringing really great changes, really great things. A lot more actions and spaces and places and opportunities and desires and everything of the good stuff can come in when we can get to a place where the overthinking is quietened. So there are many tools that you can use to be able to minimize this overthinking. You can meditate, you can visualize, you can journal, you can exercise, you can have a conversation with friends, you can listen to music, you can ground yourself in nature. You can do something completely different. Take yourself out of the energetic loop, which is the one that I would always say.

Speaker 1: 8:25

The quickest one for overthinking is stand up. If you're, if you're sitting at your desk and you're overthinking a million things, the first thing is stand up. The next one I would suggest is go to a different place, a different room, transition to a different space. This will break the pattern in your mind. Allow yourself some time completely different, or go and focus on something completely different and then come back to it. Overthinking needs a pattern. Interrupt. It needs you to stop. It's in its tracks, either by going on to something different or by creating space to meditate on why you're doing it. It is something that takes time. It's like a muscle, and the topics also show up in different guises. So people can overthink about money. People can overthink about relationships. People can overthink about business moves. People can overthink about Canva posts. People can overthink about one word on the website, a million and one things, depending on how your mind works, and it gives you so many answers.

Speaker 1: 9:26

It's a great tool to see what sort of things distract you, what sort of things energize you, what sort of things frustrate you. It's a great tool to understand yourself, also where you have to get out of your own way when you're overthinking about something that's essential in your business. You've got to get a handle on what's coming up for you. If you've got to do that task, you've got to either find out how you're going to move through or how you're going to be able to get the cash to be able to outsource it. So overthinking is a huge, huge topic.

Speaker 1: 10:00

My biggest invitation on this particular topic is to sit with yourself and see what the patterns are, understand when it shows up for you. What are you looking for? Clarity on journal around. Clarity on meditate on clarity. Move yourself from that negative space or the feeling or the heaviness of overthinking, to clarity. What is it that I really am searching for? Where? What was the clarity? How will I know when I've got there and how can I focus more of my energy onto the clarity side of how my mindset is, my energy is, my whole actions and my behaviors and my habits are.

Speaker 1: 10:44

So that's just a short and sweet behind the scenes of how you get into the space of overthinking. Super common, we have over 80,000 thoughts a day. We have a process in our mind that's a bit like an old computer where we're going to distort, we're going to delete and we're going to accept various thoughts. So this is going to happen. We're not going to ever get to a place where we don't overthink anything, but we're going to get better, sharper, quicker at it. We're going to understand ourselves more, we're going to be in that space of acceptance and we're going to know that some things are just not worth thinking like that and some things really are, because you're going to get clarity, you're going to get a space and you're going to get awareness, and that's ultimately what becoming fearless is. When you get awareness, it's the first step. Then you can work on how you're going to navigate it. How does it show up for you? What are the next steps? How are you going to be able to understand yourself more? How are you going to be able to build some habits around minimizing it and all of those kinds of tasks and tools that you can work through? So overthinking let me know how it shows up for you. Let me know if there's a particular area that you want me to dive deeper on on this topic. Let me know if you want some more tools and techniques of how to manage overthinking.

Speaker 1: 12:03

Like I say, we're always associating it with clarity. What is it in your life that you want to get clear on? What are you afraid of getting clear on? What are you scared of getting clear on? What are you scared of getting clear on? What do you feel like you are actually clear on, but it's making you feel scared? So overthinking is that safe space?

Speaker 1: 12:23

There are multiple ways to look at it. First of all, observe your overthinking. Secondly, where are you looking for clarity? Third, if you have got clarity, what are you scared of and what's overthinking Shadowing for you? Take care and I will see you on the next episode. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode. I hope that you're feeling energized, fearless and inspired to take action today to stand in your greatness. I share even more tools and resources on my I Dare to Leap email newsletter. By signing up, you not only get early access to the I Dare to Leap products and services, but you also get brand new podcast episodes delivered straight to your inbox every Monday, meaning you'll never miss your weekly dose of becoming fearless energy. Sign up now at wwwidaretoleapcom. Forward slash newsletter or click the link in the show notes below.