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9 Essential Tips To Help You Stop Overthinking Everything

Self-Improvement |

Overthinking is something that most of us suffer from occasionally. But for some of us (myself included) it happens a lot and can be debilitating and hold us back from our true potential in life. Overcoming the harsh world of overthinking things constantly can be a journey. But it is a journey worth going through because on the other end you can be a more free and better version of yourself! So today we are going to discuss the 9 essential tips to help you stop overthinking everything.

Remember as you are going on this journey to be patient an understanding with yourself. It will take time to retrain your mind to not get stuck on things and overthink them.

And you may have back slides after you have made progress and that is totally okay and normal! Just start from where you left off and keep working on it. In the long run your mental health should improve by not spending so much time overthinking.

Also, before we get into how to stop overthinking everything we need to talk about what overthinking is and why it’s important to work on overcoming it!

What is overthinking?

Overthinking is the term used when your mind gets stuck on a certain top and you think about it far more than is necessary.

When you get caught on a topic in your mind and you are giving it way more time and effort than it deserves is when you are overthinking. The difficult thing about that is that it isn’t always obvious. Often overthinking itself convinces you that the thing you are thinking too much about is a valid thing to overthink.

A large part of what we will be discussing today is how to learn to identify overthinking so you can work on overcoming it. Why is that so important? Let’s chat about that next!

Why do I need to stop overthinking everything?

We touched on it briefly but overthinking can really hold you back for two reasons.

Reason 1: Overthinking wastes your time and energy. You are using your brain power on something that isn’t actually helping you advance in life. You could be thinking of so many more useful things, helpful things, and most importantly- things you can control!

Reason 2: Overthinking spirals into increased amounts of anxiety and negative thoughts. When you get stuck thinking about something you can’t control that will make you feel anxious and can even lead to deeply negative emotions.

So when we add those two reasons up it’s proof that you need to start the journey of not overthinking everything.

That all being said let’s get into these helpful tips about how to stop overthinking!

9 Essential Tips To Help You Stop Overthinking Everything

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9 Essential Tips To Help You Stop Overthinking Everything

How to stop overthinking:

Tip 1: Learn to recognize when you are overthinking.

As I mentioned before it is so important to learn to recognize when you are overthinking something.

This tip is so challenging yet so essential for helping you grow into the best (and less anxious) version of yourself.

In order to recognize overthinking I recommend asking yourself these questions to identify it:

  • Would I feel that this topic is worth discussing for hours with a trusted companion? If it’s not then it’s definitely overthinking.
  • Is this topic something that I can control? If it is not something you can control then spending excessive time thinking about it won’t help.
  • Are there things that deserve more of your attention that aren’t getting it? This is a telltale sign that your thoughts are overthinking ones and not thoughts that are benefiting you.

Tip 2: Question your frequent thoughts.

Overthinking is often caught on the same topics over and over.

Which means that questioning your frequent thoughts can really help to identify which thoughts are overthinking and which are actually valuable and helpful for your life.

Try making a list of the different things that you think about during the day and then tally how many times each one comes up in your mind. Chances are you will see some topics that really stand out and come up in your mind more than you realized.

Then go through those with a high tally count and ask the questions from above. Figure out if they are valid thoughts or if they are overthinking. And don’t be surprised if they are all or almost all overthinking! Overthinking can take over your life and stop you from having time to think about things that you value.

Tip 3: Try journaling every day.

Journaling is a fantastic way to work through the emotions that are leading to you overthinking.

You can either approach journaling with or without prompts. If you are new to journaling and feel a bit uncomfortable with it it is usually best to start with prompts and then start working your way towards journaling without prompts. But prompts or not journaling is a self awareness activity that can really help you with personal growth.

A few journal prompts posts that can help with this are:

Also, if you want more prompts I highly recommend searching on Pinterest because there are so many great options.

Tip 4: Meditate when you are overthinking.

Meditation is an incredible tool for working on becoming more aware of your thoughts. Including when you are overthinking to help you figure out why you are overthinking and how you can shake it.

When you are meditating you are alone with your thoughts and focusing 100% of your energy on those thoughts. Which allows you to eliminate distractions and pressures from the rest of the world. Which ultimately can help you see yourself more realistically and become more aware.

I recommend either downloading a meditation app or just searching for videos on YouTube until you find a guided one that works for you as you start meditating. And then grab a yoga/meditation matand start working on meditation and figuring out your true self.

Tip 5: Remind yourself that failure is necessary for the path to success.

Failure happens to everyone. It is a part of the path to becoming your best self and being more successful. When you get stuck on a failure that is often what leads to debilitating overthinking.

You need to embrace the lessons that you have learned when you failed at something. Those lessons are what will help you have the knowledge to succeed at your next attempts and make progress at becoming your most successful self.

So don’t let yourself fall into the trap of thinking that because you didn’t succeed at one thing that you are a failure. That will cause constant self doubt. 

Instead, change your mindset to focusing on each of those as a lesson that will help you grow.

Tip 6: Get out of your comfort zone regularly.

Getting out of your comfort zone means a lot more than just traveling to a new place (though travel is important, read about that below). And expanding your mind and getting out of your comfort zone helps you have control of your thoughts as well as helping you prioritize the things that matter the most to you.

It means taking on new projects at work. You could start picking up a hobby you have always wanted to try. Or just trying new restaurants and coffee shops. 

Making an effort to at least once a month but ideally once a week get out of your comfort zone can be life changing and is one of the most important steps for personal growth in your twenties. 

Tip 7: Read a few chapters from a book daily to expand your mind.

This may seem like a strange tip for helping you stop overthinking. But it actually can help to relax your mind and help you focus your mind on the topic at hand.

Reading a bit every day is one of the best things you can do to continue to learn as an adult and keep your mind growing. I recommend incorporating at least some non-fiction into your books!

I also recommend grabbing a Kindle and a Kindle unlimited plan so that this actually will be affordable compared to buying new books all the time!

Tip 8: Stop comparing yourself to others.

Comparison can really destroy your motivation and mental well being. Which can put a sharp stop to your journey to stop overthinking.

I recommend starting this with social media by reminding yourself that it isn’t a realistic look into others lives and that they have struggles too that you can’t see.

Here are a few more reasons to stop comparing yourself to others:

  • When you compare yourself to others you put a lot of time and energy into that instead of bettering your life. 
  • When you start comparing your life to others you forget that you are only seeing parts of their life not all of it. Usually you don’t get to see or know about the negatives. 
  • If you get sucked into comparison it can be easy to not see or ignore the challenges and effort they went through to achieve things! When you are on step 1 of a journey you can’t compare to someone else’s step 3.

I have a whole post here on this and how to help you stop comparing yourself to others!

Tip 9: Remind yourself of all of the positives in your life.

I find the best way to remind yourself of the positivity in your life is to take the time to make a huge list of all the positives.

Start with today and write down and small thing that was a positive from today. Then move to this week, then this month, year, etc. 

And make sure to focus on the little things as much as the big things. Because those little positive throughout the day can be one of the most powerful tools to help you get past self doubt.

This is a great way to center yourself and work on overcoming the constant overthinking.

Korra-Shay

If you enjoyed this post on essential tips to help you stop overthinking everything then you probably (hopefully!) will find these posts helpful as well:

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