6 Tips To Stop Overthinking (And Start Living Instead)

Do you find your brain going into a loop when you’re making an important decision? Do you constantly doubt the choices you’ve made? It’s time to read these 6 tips to stop overthinking everything you do…

Write Down The Pros And Cons

Whenever possible it’s best to make informed decisions. Write your list of pros and cons, the good and bad. Do your research, make your decision and move on. You’ll know you’ve had a good stab at making the right choice.

Life Is Never Predictable

Often when you’re making choices, you’re trying to predict the future. It’s impossible. You can only base a decision on what you know. Accept you’re making the best decision in the current circumstances.

Roll With The Punches

You won’t always make the right decision. Accept this. Sometimes you’re going to get it wrong and have to deal with the outcome. Sometimes it will never be clear if you made the right decision.

Take Simon Yates for example, the guy who cut the rope in the Siula Grande expedition described in Touching The Void. His quick decision saved his life, but he’s had to roll with the punches surrounding the outcome of his decision. (His climbing partner, Joe Simpson, ended up in a deep crevasse and nearly died). That’s life. Accept and move on.

Listen To Your Gut

Once you’ve weighed up the pros and cons and thought through the impact of your decision, tune in to your gut feeling. No it’s not scientific but sometimes there’s just something there that’s bothering you. Something you can’t quite pin down. Listen to your instincts.

Don’t Deliberate

Make a decision. If you get it wrong you can deal with it. Not making a decision puts your life on hold. If all choices are bad, pick the least bad one and get on with it. Deliberating will just prolong the agony. Moving forward is your only way of getting out of a mess.

No Doubt

Once you’ve made up your mind, stop thinking about it. Let it go. The decision is made. Learn to trust yourself. Throw yourself behind your decision and make the best of it. Trust your judgement completely.

Sweating the small stuff that doesn’t matter and agonizing over decisions, just holds us back. The saying “there’s no such thing as a wrong decision” has a lot of truth to it. Accepting you won’t get everything right, stop overthinking and moving forward is more important. I’d love to know your thoughts…