How to Stop Overthinking Everything: 10 Tips
This article may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase using my links, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I appreciate your support!
Are you a victim of mental health issues, high stress levels, symptoms of depression all due to Overthinking everything you do? Overthinking at night seems dull and daunting?
Worrying about aspects of our life is part of living but when this takes up a lot of time with no useful results, you’re filled with negativity and a stressful atmosphere.
So today I’ll discuss with you my best strategies on How to overcome overthinking in everything you do, be it life problems, relationships or work stress. I’m sure these tips will help you. Let’s Go!
How to Deal With Overthinking: 10 Tips
1. Get To The Conclusion
Whenever I overthink, I don’t understand how much time I end up wasting. It takes me at least 1 hour to figure out I’ve wasted 1 hour without solving my problem. Your final aim of overthinking should be to get to a conclusion by finding a solution to your problem.
Cribbing about the problem isn’t going to help you.
Read More >>> 16 Less Stressful Ways To Be Less Stressed.
2. The RAMO Strategy
RAMO stands for Reflect, Accept, Move On and It’s a strategy I created and use all the time.
Reflect – Contemplating your thoughts for a long time isn’t productive, you could instead reflect on the situation and learn the matter completely.
Think about how you could’ve done things differently, if the same problem arises again how would you manage it smartly. Find out your mistakes and don’t lie to yourself while doing that. Think through each phase of those problems slowly and write down or remember all your mistakes. Then figure out how you could’ve handled the problem better.
Accept – Accepting that what has happened can’t be reversed is a big challenge you’ll have to face. Most people don’t accept they were at fault thus they overthink all the time without getting to a conclusion (because they don’t take the blame).
I’m sure you’ve heard of the phrase “You need two hands to clap”, so if you believe someone else messed something up, you’ve probably messed something up too or you could have handled the situation better. And if you still don’t accept this, why are you overthinking? (I’m serious!!!)
Move On – The last step of the RAMO Strategy is to move on. Why move on? Because you can’t do anything about the situation if it’s already happened. If you were supposed to get a job raise but you didn’t get it because of some reason, there’s no point being sad or losing hopes.
But what you can do is move on, either take up another job that pays you what you need or work hard in the current job and prove to your boss you deserve the raise.
Read More >>> How to Get The Job Raise: The Ultimate Guide.
3. Use The 5-Second Rule
Have you read the book, The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins? The 5 Second is quite simple if you want to work on your goals but you’re being lazy, you must physically move in less than 5 seconds or your brain won’t let you get the work done, instead, it will turn into a lazy mode (as usual).
I usually use this rule when I’m sleeping and I need to get some work done. I say 5-4-3-2-1-Go and get up without thinking. If you’re an avid procrastinator, (here’s my article on avoiding procrastination) using the 5-second rule is going to change your habits for the best.
If you haven’t read the book yet, go give it a read – The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins
4. Limit Decision Fatigue
By making hundreds of choices in a day, you’re exhausting your mind leading to less happiness and less satisfaction.
When you have to make an important decision, your mind is drained out because of all the necessary and unnecessary decisions you’ve taken throughout the day. This is called Decision Fatigue.
The simple solution for this is to minimize the number of standard decisions you take every day so that you can keep your emotional energy clear for actual important decisions.
Things like what to wear tomorrow can be managed if you organize your entire week’s clothing wear on a Sunday.
Create a daily standard timetable, a weekly meal plan and protocols to follow when something happens, thus limiting your decision making factor and keeping your mind ready when actual decisions come.
5. Understand Opportunity Cost
According to Google Dictionary, Opportunity cost is “the loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.” This means there’s always going to be another choice that could have been better or worse than the current choice you’ve made.
There’s no certainty that the choice you’ve made is a bad choice and there is no certainty that the choice you could have made would be a good choice.
Regret is only going to take you down; you can’t mourn over your decision because you believe the alternate decision was better.
What you can do is take some more time and make an educated guess rather than randomly choosing one option over another. Do some research, ask your friends and families, trust your intuition and make a decision. Doing this will stop you from overthinking everything.
6. Change The Topic
Forcing yourself to do anything won’t work for long. You need to convince yourself that doing something has some merit. So instead of forcing yourself to avoid thinking of the problem, change the topic completely.
If your problem is related to dating, reduce communication for a while and engage in exercise or walks or anything that’ll shift your mind from the original topic.
Here are a few things you could do:
1. Learn to cook
2. Learn new skills or practice old ones
3. Volunteer with an NGO
4. Watch comedy series
Doing this will reduce negativity as you’re not thinking about the problem and it will slowly help you get over the problem.
7. Whatever Happens Happens For The Best
Believe it or not, whatever happens always happens for the best. I’m a firm believer in this statement as I have had bad experiences in the past but I don’t regret having any of those experiences because I learnt something from them and it helped me become a better person.
The movie “When We First Met” is based on this very principle where Noah uses a photo booth to change his past so he could make the girl of his dreams fall in love with him but every time he tried something would go wrong. He then realised that – whatever happens, happens for a reason.
Similarly, you need to stop negative thinking, realise that you have to accept whatever has happened and be happy with it.
8. Learn Mindfulness Skills
Mindfulness skills are your best friends because they can teach you to relax and distress. It helps bring your thoughts together making you more aware of the situation. It removes negativity and helps positive thinking grow.
Meditation and other forms of mindfulness take time to learn so don’t expect immediate results but these skills will help you reduce overthinking and bring joy to your life.
There are courses, physical classes, apps, youtube videos and podcasts to help you learn mindfulness skills easily.
Want to do something quick right now? Follow me:
1. Find a comfortable place, make sure there’s less noise
2. Close your eyes, relax your face, shoulders, legs and hands
3. Inhale – hold for 5 seconds, exhale – for 5 seconds; repeat this process 5-10 times.
I’m feeling fresh, are you? (assuming you did this!)
9. Look At The Bigger Picture
If you’ve read my article on 21 Brutal Life Lessons, you already know that Nobody Cares what happens in your life. Everybody is busy trying to find success and enjoy life. Will this issue affect your life 5 or 10 years from now?
Will your friends even care if you underdressed for a function or when you were blamed for the breakup? According to my experience, people forget such things in a month or two, give it a year and they’ll forget this completely (or at least not care at all).
So why are you overthinking so much if none of this matters in the future? Don’t let such things break you!
There’s this great book on Amazon, Rewire your Anxious Brain by Catherine Pittman that will give you some great insights and help you reduce the dangers of overthinking.
10. Make Someone’s Day Better
Can you help your neighbour file their taxes? Does your friend need your help with his office project? Most people today are self-centred.
Trying to help someone makes us feel good and it makes them like us more. If you could help them, it’ll keep you distracted from negative overthinking everything.
Stop overthinking your life and start living
Whenever somebody asks me about overthinking and how to overcome overthinking in your relationship, your career, your goals and aspirations, I always ask them if they learned anything from overthinking on that topic.
Let’s say you were overthinking about your life goals, at the end of it, did you come to learn something from all that thinking or did you forget everything you were thinking about?
Just like everything in life, overthinking is a result-oriented thing, if you can’t extract some good output, you’re wasting time.
If you spent 3 hours thinking and came to the conclusion that you’re going to create a timetable to achieve your goals, you have a solution to your problem, but if all you got out of overthinking is sadness and misery, you’re wasting time and you’re unhappy.
Totally useless!!!
Do you want to live a life where you spend most of your time thinking and less of your time doing? Be grateful for what you have and enjoy your time living life rather than suffering in the habit of overthinking.
Aggressive overthinking is natural and it happens to the best of people. But by creating systems and habits to deal with overthinking, you can reduce stress, anxiety, depression and be more productive and happy.
Have you enjoyed this post? If so, you might want to subscribe to my newsletter. It usually contains life lessons and money-related topics, some interesting observations, links to articles or books I’ve read, and tips to be a better person. If you’re interested in these things then subscribing will be simply wonderful 🙂 PS: Subscribe and Get your Freebie below!
Also, I’m a YouTuber now! If you’re interested in Pinterest Marketing, Blogging, or business-related things, Subscribe to my Channel and I’ll see you in the comments!