How to Stop Overthinking

Hello and welcome to the Curiosity Chronicle, a weekly podcast where I provide actionable ideas to help you build a high performing, healthy, wealthy life. Today's podcast is brought to you by AG1 by Athletic Greens my all in one daily supplement. Seriously, this stuff replaced an entire cabinet of supplements for me in one daily Scoop. There's a reason it's been a staple of my morning routine since 2011. To find out why, go to drinkag1.comsahil and and take advantage of a limited time offer. Now onto today's piece how to Stop Overthinking over the three years since I started this journey as a writer, I've had the unique privilege of meeting and spending time with thousands of people all over the world. People from all walks of life, different stages, backgrounds and circumstances. One observation from that experience Most are plenty capable of building the life they want, but few execute on that capability. I've come to believe that there is one common theme that holds people back from living the life they want and the life they are capable of living. Overthinking. And what's more, I've experienced it in my own life. I used to overanalyze every decision, catastrophize the outcomes, and force myself into a state of mental paralysis. I'd obsess over making the perfect decision only to notice that the world wasn't waiting for me to arrive upon it and the moment an opportunity had passed. I read everything I could find on how to stop overthinking, but noticed that most advice involved following some long multi step process. In other words, a bunch of thinking to stop overthinking. In today's piece, I want to share what worked for me. Three simple mindset shifts, reminders and reframes you can reliably turn to that helped me conquer overthinking for good. 1. The decision is less important than the actions that follow it. 90% of overthinking comes from a single flawed belief that the decision is what matters. The ultimate outcome in any given situation is governed far more by the actions that follow a decision than the decision itself. In my own life, a lot of bad decisions were more accurately the result of inconsistent follow actions. I made a decision but then failed to follow up with disciplined, focused daily effort to make it right. A decision is rarely bad in a vacuum, but it's always easier for you to blame the decision than to hold your desire and focus to the fire. The decision is a one time event out of your control after making it, but the tens, hundreds and thousands of actions that follow it are entirely within your control. An observation on the highest performers I've been around. They focus all of their energy on the actions that follow, not the decision itself. They make a decision, then make it the right decision through their actions. Stop placing so much emphasis on the decision itself and losing sight of your control over the actions that follow it. Make a decision, then make it right through your actions. 2. Trust in your adaptability, not your plan. The lack of self trust is the cause of a tremendous amount of overthinking. It is a lack of trust in your ability to make the right decision to navigate to your desired destination. But consider this simple metaphor. The explorer doesn't set out on his voyage trusting that the seas will remain calm and and that he will stay perfectly on course, but rather in his ability to adapt when the inevitable storms and chaos arrive. You are the explorer and life is your voyage. You don't need to place your trust in the perfect plan, but just in your ability to adapt. Planning is fine, but beware the perils of over planning. As Mike Tyson famously said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Be the explorer, make a plan, set sail, and trust in your ability to adapt when the inevitable punches of the sea start raining down on you. 3. Most decisions are far more reversible than you think in his 1997Amazon shareholder letter, Jeff Bezos shared an insight on the two different types of decisions an organization will face. Some decisions are consequential and irreversible or nearly irreversible one way doors and these decisions must be made methodically, carefully, slowly, with great deliberation and consultation. If you walk through and don't like what you see on the other side, you can't get back to where you were before. We can call these type 1 decisions, but most decisions aren't like that. They are changeable, right? Reversible. They're two way doors. If you've made a suboptimal type 2 decision, you don't have to live with the consequences for that long. You can reopen the door and go back through. Type 2 decisions can and should be made quickly by high judgment individuals or small groups. As organizations get larger, there seems to be a tendency to use the heavyweight type one decision making process on most decisions, including many type two decisions. The end result of this is slowness, unthoughtful risk aversion, failure to experiment sufficiently, and consequently diminished invention. End quote. This offers a powerful lesson for life. Never mistake type 2 decisions for type 1. For the overthinker, there is a common tendency to assume irreversibility. To assume that every decision is a type one decision. If I quit my safe job to pursue this entrepreneurial path, I'll never be able to go back. If I move out and fail, I'll never be able to go back home. If this doesn't work out, I'll never be able to recover. If this venture fails, no one will hire me. The Reality Most decisions are far more reversible than you think. That bold action creates a wealth of experience, skills, knowledge and network that have value irrespective of whether the main thing works out or not. You may not achieve the thing you set out to do, but you will leave far from empty handed. Which means you will have more to offer if you walk back through the door after a failure. Walk through the door? It's probably a two way door anyway. The world is yours for the taking. There is someone out there living the life you want simply because they took action and and you didn't. They aren't smarter than you. They aren't more skilled than you. They aren't more resourceful than you. They just acted when you didn't. You don't need more information. If information were the problem, every single person would be rich, fit and madly in love. Your entire life will change the moment you stop gathering more information and start acting on the information you already have. Overthinking won't build a better future or fix your broken past. It will only hold you back. You don't need to make perfect decisions. There's no such thing. There are just decisions and you make them perfect with your actions. Remember, the world is yours for the taking. So what's stopping you from starting today? That's all for today's piece. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something and I hope you'll share it with others. If you if you enjoyed this, you're going to love my debut book, the Five Types of Wealth, which you can order now anywhere online that books are sold or@the5types of wealth.com as always, until next time, everybody stay curious. Friends.