Getting stuck in your own head can sometimes feel comfortable. It’s you, with your own thoughts, in a reactive mode, letting the story unfold in your mind. And the more you let it happen, the less control you’ll start having on whatever story is played in your mind. To overthink less, you’ll have to become aware of the story and understand what parts of you trigger it.
To make it as simple as possible, at the opposite pole of overthinking, you’ll find action.
To break free from how much time you spend inside your mind, you have to do something with your body.
But just having this idea as a strategy won’t help. It will get you even more stuck in overthinking because it opens up this sea of possible actions you could do to shift from overthinking to less thinking and more doing.
What makes us overthink?
Let’s start with a story.
Imagine you just arrived at the seaside and you can’t wait to dip your toes in the water, even though you know it’s going to be very cold.
You unpack everything, take out your shoes and your socks, and you run towards the water. You stop right before touching the water, become aware of what you are about to do, and carefully touch the water with your toes, making sure you become comfortable with the cold temperature.
As soon as you do it, you feel your toes freezing and you almost jump back on the sand, where the freezing cold water can’t reach your feet.
So… where’s the overthinking?
There’s none. Why?
Because your mind is focused on something and doesn’t allow room for anything else to enter your mind.
You want to experience the cold water and you are aware of it.
Overthinking happens at the opposite pole.
We usually overthink because we are biased, when the mood is shifting, and when we can’t control it.
In the above example, you can’t be biased about the water. You know it’s cold and, when you experience it, you confirm that it’s true.
Also, your mood doesn’t change. You are excited about the experience and that excitement lasts long enough so it doesn’t interfere with your thinking.
Because of this, you are in control. You are in control of your experience and your actions connected to that experience.
What’s the downside of overthinking?
When you spend hours and hours thinking about all kinds of things, your state changes.
Getting lost in thought usually happens with a change of state from positive to negative. You become sad (even depressed), you feel your body more heavily, your movements are slower, and it’s difficult to get out of that state. It can even lead to health problems.
But why does this happen?
When you overthink, you enter a process called rumination.
Rumination is the process where you become obsessed with specific events from your past, which can trigger negative emotions. Being nostalgic about your past can also trigger rumination.
The more you ruminate, the more you’ll appreciate your past and you’ll start comparing the bright side of your past with the bad side of your present.
You’ll start saying things like “Two years ago things were […] compared to now, when they are a lot worse.”
This kind of thinking will eventually make you feel helpless about your present moment. When you believe the past was better than the present and you can’t do something to improve your current situation, you become helpless.
Helplessness is the cause for depression. When you are helpless, you believe that your actions won’t make a difference.
When you are depressed, your body produces catecholamine (dopamine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline) depletion and increases in endorphin secretion. Too much endorphin can lower the activity of the immune system. And, because of that, you are more likely to get sick.
How does overthinking impact organizations?
There’s a research from 2001, conducted by Harvard Business Review, called “Conquering a culture of indecision”, which has a very interesting conclusion.
It says that in organizations, overthinking is more about under-communicating, which creates a paralysis of action.
In other words, overthinking happens in isolation and this is the result of how leaders create their environment. Because leadership doesn’t encourage out loud thinking, people inside the organization end up in isolation – that’s where they start overthinking.
People end up ruminating privately on concerns that are never voiced publicly.
In this case, less thinking wouldn’t help. Instead, the action that would create a positive shift inside the organization is honest dialogue where the concerns are addressed, instead of letting these concerns manifest as overthinking.
The framework I built can help you overthink less
When we overthink, we get stuck in the stories we tell ourselves. And while these stories feel real, they are illusions. All they do is to keep you stuck in the past, where you either had something better than now, or you experienced a trauma.
In both cases, you use these stories to stay in an emotional state that is familiar, no matter how much harm it does to you.
But all these stories are connected to the experiences we have and, through these stories, we give meaning to our experiences.
Without our stories, our experiences have no meaning. Without our stories, our lives are meaningless. Which means we have the opportunity to write the story exactly the way we want to write it.
When you understand what triggers your stories and what makes you stuck in the experiences of your past, you can finally return to the present moment and write your story, here and now, in a way that matches the way you want your future to be.
I spent 2 years (from 2023 to 2025) researching optimism and, in 2025, I created the Strategic Optimism Framework™.
Therefore, I have a guide prepared for you. With The Optimism Formula that is part of my research.
13 pages. Research-backed. Free.
Discover The Optimism Formula now!
Simple actions that can help you spend less time inside your mind
Overthinking can happen in any aspect of our lives. But for me, there are two that are very important: business and relationships.
Therefore, if you believe you spend too much time thinking (either about your business or in your relationships), I have for you some simple actions that can help you overthink less.
Let’s take them one by one.
How to overthink less in business
If you are in a situation where you have to price your product or service, and you don’t know how to do it, you’ll start overthinking it.
If the price is too high, nobody will buy it. If the price is too low, it will lower the value of whatever you’re offering.
If you’re trying to price your service or product, do this:
- Pick a number that makes you slightly uncomfortable (you can change it later).
- Test with 5 real leads before adjusting anything.
- Ask 3 people in your industry what they charge, average it, and start from there.
But what if you have no problem with pricing?
You know how much you want to charge and that’s not a problem for you.
Your problem is that, when you look at what you can offer, you see an unfinished product or service.
Therefore, you don’t feel confident about launching. So, you start overthinking it.
If you’re trying to launch before it’s ready, do this:
- Set a public launch date, then work backward.
- Release when it’s 80% done and then use the feedback to adjust.
- Pre-sell to 3 people to force yourself to deliver something real.
Let’s say you successfully launched it and you’re happy with how everything happened.
Now it’s time to move on. Maybe search for new business opportunities.
You do your research, make a list of different new things that you could do, but you feel stuck. So, you start overthinking.
If you’re trying to decide between business opportunities, do this:
- Run a 2-week sprint on the best option you have instead of comparing forever.
- Set a revenue/learning threshold: “If it doesn’t hit X by [date], I move to something else”.
- Ask yourself: “What is the option that, if I don’t approach it, I would later regret?”.
Overthinking in business can have many shapes and forms.
How do you usually deal with overthinking when it comes to building your business?
How to overthink less in relationships
In the past few years, the most important thing I did for the health of my relationships was to set boundaries.
But doing so is not easy. Maybe the other person doesn’t agree with the boundaries you set. Maybe they will overreact because the new boundary is changing the nature of the relationship.
Setting boundaries is delicate and it may trigger overthinking.
If you’re trying to set boundaries, do this:
- Say “no” to the next request that makes you uncomfortable – there’s no need to explain yourself beyond “this doesn’t work for me”.
- If one day has passed and it still bothers you, address it.
Building relationships is not always easy. While some relationships are easy to maintain, most relationships require difficult decisions.
When you make decisions connected to your relationships, these decisions are usually around staying, leaving, or committing to the relationship.
And because relationships are complex, making sure you get to the right decision can start to feel like an overthinking process.
If you’re trying to make the right decision about relationships, do this:
- List 3 non-negotiables. If they’re not met, you have your answer.
- Give yourself a deadline for your decision. Not someday, but an actual date.
- Ask yourself what your best friend would advise you to do and have that as a point of reference.
But overthinking can also happen when things are not so serious.
For example, when you want to meet new people and you are alone at a party or event. Wanting to start a conversation with a stranger can easily turn into overthinking.
You start thinking about all the things that you could say and the things that you shouldn’t say.
If you’re trying to start a conversation with a stranger, do this:
- As soon as you see someone, just walk up to them and say “Hey”.
- Make sure that you don’t get lost in details about yourself and focus on learning more about the other person.
- Having the perfect opener is overrated. Just ask questions and you’ll be fine.
Relationships are complex and complicated – it’s in their nature. And I believe this is what makes them beautiful.
Through our uniqueness, we have a chance of discovering more of ourselves when we build something with others. It can be a simple conversation, a business, or a family.
But to achieve that, we have to understand when our mind takes over.
Don’t spend too much time in your head. Whatever story you’re writing in your mind will remain a story if you don’t act on it.
With love and optimism,
David
