The Root Cause Of Overthinking

Overthinking is often more of a confidence problem than anything else.

Really think about where overthinking comes from.

It usually arises because:

• You're afraid the worst case scenario might happen

• You have too much on your plate

• You're uncertain what the future might hold

All of those could be linked back to not having enough confidence in yourself.

If you trusted that you could figure things out even in the worst case scenario, you'd stop thinking about it.

If you've already been in a situation where you've had a lot on your plate and you smashed it, another overwhelming period wouldn't be so daunting.

If you were certain that you could create a great future, then you wouldn't worry about the unknowns.

Trust is the overarching solution. And to build trust, you must build evidence that you do the difficult things you say you’ll do.

You must have evidence that you’re capable of figuring things out no matter what the future holds.

I like to think of trust-building evidence at three levels:

Level 1: Mini evidence - These are the small things you’ve been putting off that take less than a day to complete. Examples include making your bed, doing the dishes, writing a few sentences of that next script, etc.

Level 2: Medium evidence - These tasks are a bit more hefty. They usually require at least several weeks/months. Examples include uploading a YouTube video once a week for a month, working out 4 times a week for a month, or speaking to at least 3 strangers a week for 1-3 months.

Level 3: Large evidence - These can only be completed after (usually) a minimum of one year. This might just be an expansion of the medium evidence—so instead of a month of working out, it’s the entire year. Or it might be something that can only be reached after a long time—like getting a degree. This is really about showing up consistently over the long run.

The higher the level of evidence you have, the more of a positive impact that thing will have on your confidence. But doing all 3 levels is important so you can focus on the small wins too.

And if you don't have any evidence yet, I'm sure you can find something from your past.

There's evidence somewhere that you can follow through with what you say you'll do, but you probably aren’t conditioned to look for those things as often, and instead focus on the negative.

This is why learning to acknowledging the evidence is as important as the evidence itself.

Eventually, you'll stop identifying with the overthinking self, and you'll identify more with the confident self that was always waiting to be seen.

And when you do that, your thoughts will naturally quiet themselves, knowing that everything will unfold exactly as it should.

Quote of The Week

Thanks for reading, everyone. Hope you enjoy your weekend.

-Cole