Stop Overthinking

Introduction

This tends to happen to me a whole lot.

Some people call it overthinking. For me, it used to be considered as just a norm.

You know, better be prepared than dead, or whatever that sentence should be.

If I want to go on a date, planning a few weeks ahead does not stress me out.

I look forward to the date for a few weeks. That's what.

It does not require any additional brain cell for it.

But as I meet more people from different walks of life, I realise that that is not the case for everyone. I have friends who get stress over the fact that they need to make restaurants bookings a few days in advance. Their reasoning? Why take life so seriously and plan it? Just follow the flow and see how it goes that day.

Meaning, if one of us is not up for it that day then so be it.

I mean, it was a tough concept for me to grasp as their reasoning for it definitely does not jive with mine. I find that it's less stressful to plan ahead as I would know how to block and allocate my time accordingly and for me, it is a form of respect for others time as well.

From that few sentence, I bet many of you would be able to tell how easy overthinking would be for me. Oftentimes, I even get into the overthinking gear without much effort.

You know what they say about one thing leads to another? That is exactly how my thought process is. It's a natural process.

However, such thought process ain't exactly your friend if it is put into the negative thinking spiral. The more you think, the more you imagine and make things up in your head that are not factually supported, the more negative you are on your outlook on things.

There is no one out there who can help you with the constant negative thinking except yourself. If you do not wish to keep your thoughts in check and put an effort to it, no one can help you on that.

I would say honestly that for overthinkers like me, keeping tabs on one's thoughts is no easy task. However, I do feel like when you are aware and accept that you overthink, that is already one major step taken.

I came to accept this habit of mine to take the negative spiral at all times and decide to take action and improve upon it, little by little. It is a gradual process, but definitely would allow you in the long run to suffer less from negative overthinking.

So, how do we go about starting you say.

Steps to overcome overthinking:

1. Accept.

2. Aware.

3. Halt.

I would explain each one of it in the subsequent chapters.