No Whining Wednesday – Stop Overthinking

Welcome back to No Whining Wednesday, the only day of the week where you do not get to whine, complain or criticize for this entire 24hr day. If you are new to this blog or new to this segment, be sure to see the original post HERE for more on what this is all about.

I am sitting here drinking my coffee and reflecting and one thing comes to mind today: “EC, stop overthinking!”

I hope you know by now that the inspiration for these NWW messages come from what I tell myself or what I’ve learned on a very personal level at some time or another. That said, I overthink a lot which leads to anxiety, fear, and a host of other things that sneak in through this “overthinking doorway”. It gets to where I have to step away from social media completely if I am overstimulated. (I am probably the only person who deactivates their Facebook like every two weeks…don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. Speaking of which, it’s about that time lol.)

I say all of this to say that I understand the harm that overthinking can do to a person mind, to their health and to their ability to enjoy the moment. You’re always thinking about what could go wrong or if you’ve done something wrong instead of what could go right and if you’ve done something right. Like the quote says, when we overthink we are creating problems that aren’t there. This is torture of our minds and personal well-being. We are already under attack by others (either people are rooting for you or casting spells, better believe it), there’s absolutely no reason to add to this by doing this to ourselves.

Here are some harmful results of overthinking and I must add, not overthinking is harder than it sounds so don’t beat yourself up about it. Reclaiming that peace takes practice and time like everything else:

Limits you – Instead of taking action you are sitting there thinking about it and creating limitations that weren’t there before and will probably never exist.

Complicates things – Simple things now seem complicated. This is not just in relation to our personal lives but I notice we do this in Indie Publishing too. Sooo much is over-complicated. Honestly, it’s not that hard. I wish we could focus on encouraging each other to learn the basics and building on that instead of creating these long lists of things that will come naturally over-time if we just wait.

Depression – Overthinking leads to depression. Really bad depression.

Lack of Confidence – Over-thinkers expect bad things to happen instead of expecting good things to happen. This causes you to lack confidence in your abilities.

Fear – As a result, you are in a constant state of fear (anxiety is no laughing matter and it is, at its root, caused by fear)

Depletes Your Energy – You literally tire yourself out from thinking too much. The energy you could have used to be productive is now gone.

I hope this small list helps you to not think so much and sometimes you do have to take physical action. For instance, I turned my phone off until I finished this post. Stepping away from social media is also a great help for me. Whenever I feel that I am overdoing it I step back and it gives me peace. I’m an introvert at heart so I can only take so much.

That’s it folks. Don’t overthink it today.