Latest / The You Project / #1751 Over-Thinking - Harps

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#1751 Over-Thinking - Harps · The You Project

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  Speaker 1: Good team. It's Harps Today. I want to talk to
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  Speaker 1: you about overthinking the propensity we have to overthink things,
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  Speaker 1: to keep ourselves awake at night, to not do things
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  Speaker 1: that we should do because we're overthinking it, to overthink
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  Speaker 1: and underdo and underperform and cripple ourselves with fear and
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  Speaker 1: anxiety and self doubt and imposter syndrome. Because we are
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  Speaker 1: scared of something. We are scared of failing sometimes, we
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  Speaker 1: are scared of fucking up. We are scared of looking silly.
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  Speaker 1: We are scared of not belonging or being loved or
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  Speaker 1: valued or respected or heard. We are scared of pain
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  Speaker 1: and discomfort and messiness and uncertainty. And so we just
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  Speaker 1: stand on the sidelines and do nothing, the metaphoric sidelines
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  Speaker 1: and do nothing. So what I don't have to day
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  Speaker 1: is a three step solution. Because we are all different,
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  Speaker 1: there is no for virtually anything in life. There are
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  Speaker 1: very few three step solutions to any problem, challenge, sickness
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  Speaker 1: issue that works universally as effectively for everyone. So rather
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  Speaker 1: than give you a solution, I might give you some
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  Speaker 1: thoughts and ideas around it. But I want to talk
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  Speaker 1: to you about why we do it and I think
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  Speaker 1: if we can understand why we do it, how we
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  Speaker 1: do it when we're most likely to do it, then
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  Speaker 1: we can figure out, perhaps for ourselves, a strategy or
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  Speaker 1: a path that we can take that might turn down
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  Speaker 1: the volume or eliminate or reduce the analysis paralysis that
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  Speaker 1: we have going on. So I have been an overthinker.
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  Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of my especially younger life, not
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  Speaker 1: longer life, as I almost my younger life overthinking things
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  Speaker 1: because because I was scared, let's just be absolutely transparent
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  Speaker 1: and honest, I was scared of not being good enough,
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  Speaker 1: and then by not being good enough, other people would
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  Speaker 1: know that I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't you
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  Speaker 1: know what one of my big fears was for a
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  Speaker 1: very long time. I don't even know that I've ever
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  Speaker 1: said this out loud. And this really stopped me. This
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  Speaker 1: really stopped me from doing a lot of things. And
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  Speaker 1: I spent a great deal of time overthinking, over analyzing
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  Speaker 1: things because I thought this sounds weird. It's true. I
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  Speaker 1: had a deep seated belief that I wasn't very smart.
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  Speaker 1: And I don't really even know from where that came,
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  Speaker 1: but I just thought I wasn't smart and I thought
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  Speaker 1: that if I said something, or if I made certain
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  Speaker 1: decisions or I took certain action, that people would know,
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  Speaker 1: that people would discover because I felt like, for a
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  Speaker 1: long time I was getting away with it. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: there are still times when I feel that, and I'm
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  Speaker 1: a bit self deprecating in some of the shows and
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  Speaker 1: all of that, but I genuinely feel at times not
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  Speaker 1: smart enough. But there was a long period of my life,
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  Speaker 1: I would say, until my mid thirties, where I genuinely
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  Speaker 1: thought I was relatively stupid and I was kind of
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  Speaker 1: lucky I was getting away with it and people hadn't
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  Speaker 1: figured out how stupid I was. And so part of
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  Speaker 1: that that fear, that self doubt, that self loathing, that
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  Speaker 1: lack of self belief that led me to over analyze
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  Speaker 1: and overthink so many things and so many things that
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  Speaker 1: I could have done that I didn't do. Opportunities I
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  Speaker 1: could have taken or could have created, and results I
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  Speaker 1: could have produced I didn't. Because I overthought everything. I
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  Speaker 1: created my own form of psychological, emotional, and behavioral paralysis.
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  Speaker 1: I overthought the shit out of everything. So I think
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  Speaker 1: there are a couple of things to factor in or
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  Speaker 1: think about and one is, you know, like what can
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  Speaker 1: I do and what can't I do? Or perhaps a
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  Speaker 1: better question is what's in my control and what's not
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  Speaker 1: in my control? And we spend a lot of time
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  Speaker 1: overthinking things that are actually flawed beliefs like I'm not
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  Speaker 1: good enough. If I do this, they won't like me,
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  Speaker 1: they won't love me. I will And by the way,
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  Speaker 1: of course, some people are going to not like you,
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  Speaker 1: and some things you're going to be shit at, and
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  Speaker 1: some things you will fail at, and sometimes you will
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  Speaker 1: look silly, and sometimes you will get embarrassed, as will I,
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  Speaker 1: as have I many times. But in order to at
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  Speaker 1: least create some kind of progress in this space of
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  Speaker 1: overthinking and turning down the volume on it, a little
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  Speaker 1: part of that is being mature enough and emotionally and
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  Speaker 1: psychologically resilient enough to say I could fail, I could
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  Speaker 1: look silly, I could fall down. It might not work,
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  Speaker 1: some people might not like it or me, it might
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  Speaker 1: not be a positive outcome, and that's okay, and not
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  Speaker 1: just say that, but be true in that it's okay.
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  Speaker 1: I might fuck up, I might fail, and it's okay.
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  Speaker 1: And also tacking on to the end of that because
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  Speaker 1: I know when I do hard things, when I do
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  Speaker 1: take a chance, when I do step out, when I
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  Speaker 1: do allow myself to be vulnerable and get uncomfortable, and
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  Speaker 1: perhaps put myself in a process or a situation where
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  Speaker 1: the outcome might not be what I want, and I
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  Speaker 1: could get all of those things embarrassed or or rejected
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  Speaker 1: or whatever it is. In the middle of that, I
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  Speaker 1: learn about me. In the middle of that, I developed
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  Speaker 1: skill and knowledge and understanding and awareness and competence and resilience.
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  Speaker 1: And it's not until we step into our fears, or
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  Speaker 1: face our fears, or lean in a little bit that
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  Speaker 1: quite often the volume goes down on the overthinking. So
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  Speaker 1: overthinking is generally about fear. What is the fear? What
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  Speaker 1: am I afraid of? I was very afraid for a
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  Speaker 1: very long time of all of those things that I said,
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  Speaker 1: not being good enough, not being smart enough, being embarrassed,
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  Speaker 1: being a failure, what people. I was very worried about
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  Speaker 1: what people thought to me, because I felt and nobody
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  Speaker 1: did this to me. This was just a byproduct of things.
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  Speaker 1: And I don't blame anyone, and I'm not mad at anyone,
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  Speaker 1: but one of the byproducts of my childhood and my
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  Speaker 1: teenage years was that I didn't feel enough, good enough,
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  Speaker 1: attractive enough, skinny enough, life light enough, smart enough, creative enough,
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  Speaker 1: funny enough, socially acceptable enough. I didn't feel all of
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  Speaker 1: those things. Now, the truth was that I probably was enough.
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  Speaker 1: But being enough and believing that you're enough are different things.
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  Speaker 1: So the challenge for us is not to find some
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  Speaker 1: magic switch to turn off the overthinking, but to rather
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  Speaker 1: understand ourselves and understand our overthinking. What is the source
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  Speaker 1: of this cognitive mayhem? Why is it so busy in
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  Speaker 1: my head? What am I really really scared of. I'm
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  Speaker 1: scared of failure, I'm scared of rejection. I'm scared of
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  Speaker 1: having no money. I'm scared of being uncomfortable or embarrassment
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  Speaker 1: or uncertainty or unfamiliarity. What if I took that chance?
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  Speaker 1: What if I just addressed all of this with courage?
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  Speaker 1: What if I went, well, yeah, all of those things
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  Speaker 1: could be happed, could happened. But nonetheless, I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: make a decision. I'm going to step forward. I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to step up, not down. I'm going to take a chance.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to lean in, and quite often, if not
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  Speaker 1: most of the time, what happens is that thing that
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  Speaker 1: we were terrified of proves to be false. It proves
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  Speaker 1: to be something that we didn't need to be that
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  Speaker 1: scared of. And when we do it, all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 1: we change our relationship with that thing that was terrifying,
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  Speaker 1: and now instead of it managing us, we start to
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  Speaker 1: manage it. The fear goes down our relationship with that thing.
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  Speaker 1: We do something uncomfortable, we do something we were scared of,
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  Speaker 1: We do something that perhaps we didn't think we could do.
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  Speaker 1: We do it, or we do a version of it.
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  Speaker 1: We build confidence, skill, resilience, and now we're overthinking less.
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  Speaker 1: Do I ever think it disappears for most of us. No,
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  Speaker 1: I think it's part of the human condition. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: thinking a lot is not the same as overthinking thinking
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  Speaker 1: a lot and and being creative and solving problems and
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  Speaker 1: navigating and negotiating life from that kind of epicenter of us,
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  Speaker 1: which is our mind. That's very normal. I'm talking in
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  Speaker 1: this conversation about the overthinking, the destructive overthinking that can
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  Speaker 1: derail our power, possibilities and potential. Let's take a quick
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  Speaker 1: break and we'll come back and wrap up. All right,
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  Speaker 1: we're back. So I don't know how good that was? Today,
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  Speaker 1: I'm overthinking how good that was. I don't think it
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  Speaker 1: was brilliant, but I'm opening the door. I could almost
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  Speaker 1: press the delete button on this episode, but I'm not
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  Speaker 1: going to. I'm not going to. I'm not going to
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  Speaker 1: give in to that fear. It's funny that I have
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  Speaker 1: been overthinking this conversation about overthinking with you, about how
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  Speaker 1: I might share it articulated, because I don't have an answer,
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  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I like in inverted commas.
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  Speaker 1: I don't have and I've thoughts and ideas. So in
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  Speaker 1: terms of opening the door and moving forward on this
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  Speaker 1: for you and starting to get the wheels turning on
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  Speaker 1: being less controlled by fear and being less of a
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  Speaker 1: chronic overthinker, my questions for you are these. One, what
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  Speaker 1: fear is at the core of your overthinking? It might
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  Speaker 1: be many things, but I think there might be a consistent,
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  Speaker 1: reoccurring theme for many people. It's the fear of discomfort,
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  Speaker 1: whether that's physical, mental, emotional, social, or financial discomfort. But
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  Speaker 1: what fear is at the core of your overthinking? And
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  Speaker 1: also question two, I'm not even charging you for this
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  Speaker 1: second question. I'm chucking it in. Fuck it it's how
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  Speaker 1: I roll. Question two is what am I currently wasting
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  Speaker 1: energy on? What am I obsessing over? What am I overthinking?
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  Speaker 1: What am I focusing on? Because where your mind is,
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  Speaker 1: your emotion are, where your emotions are, your body is,
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  Speaker 1: and where all of that is, you are. What am
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  Speaker 1: I currently wasting energy on that I need to let
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  Speaker 1: go of. I'm going to overthink this episode for the
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  Speaker 1: next day, So yeah,