Speaker 1: Good team. It's Harps Today. I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about overthinking the propensity we have to overthink things,
Speaker 1: to keep ourselves awake at night, to not do things
Speaker 1: that we should do because we're overthinking it, to overthink
Speaker 1: and underdo and underperform and cripple ourselves with fear and
Speaker 1: anxiety and self doubt and imposter syndrome. Because we are
Speaker 1: scared of something. We are scared of failing sometimes, we
Speaker 1: are scared of fucking up. We are scared of looking silly.
Speaker 1: We are scared of not belonging or being loved or
Speaker 1: valued or respected or heard. We are scared of pain
Speaker 1: and discomfort and messiness and uncertainty. And so we just
Speaker 1: stand on the sidelines and do nothing, the metaphoric sidelines
Speaker 1: and do nothing. So what I don't have day is
Speaker 1: a three step solution. Because we are all different, there
Speaker 1: is no for virtually anything in life. There are very
Speaker 1: few three step solutions to any problem, challenge, sickness issue
Speaker 1: that works universally as effectively for everyone. So rather than
Speaker 1: give you a solution, I might give you some thoughts
Speaker 1: and ideas around it. But I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about why we do it. And I think if
Speaker 1: we can understand why we do it, how we do
Speaker 1: it when we're most likely to do it, then we
Speaker 1: can figure out, perhaps for ourselves, a strategy or a
Speaker 1: path that we can take that might turn down the
Speaker 1: volume or eliminate or reduce the analysis paralysis that we
Speaker 1: have going on. So I have been an overthinker. I've
Speaker 1: spent a lot of my especially younger life, not longer life,
Speaker 1: as I almost my younger life overthinking things because because
Speaker 1: I was scared, let's just be absolutely transparent and honest,
Speaker 1: I was scared of not being good enough, and then
Speaker 1: by not being good enough, other people would know that
Speaker 1: I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't you know what
Speaker 1: one of my big fears was for a very long time.
Speaker 1: I don't even know that I've ever said this out loud.
Speaker 1: And this really stopped me. This really stopped me from
Speaker 1: doing a lot of things. And I spent a great
Speaker 1: deal of time overthinking, over analyzing things because I thought
Speaker 1: this sounds weird. It's true. I had a deep seated
Speaker 1: belief that I wasn't very smart. And I don't really
Speaker 1: even know from where that came, but I just thought
Speaker 1: I wasn't smart and I thought that if I said something,
Speaker 1: or if I made certain decisions or I took certain action,
Speaker 1: that people would know, that people would discover because I
Speaker 1: felt like, for a long time I was getting away
Speaker 1: with it. And you know, there are still times when
Speaker 1: I feel that, and I'm a bit self deprecating in
Speaker 1: some of the shows and all of that, but I
Speaker 1: genuinely feel at times not smart enough. But there was
Speaker 1: a long period of my life, I would say, until
Speaker 1: my mid thirties, where I genuinely thought I was relatively
Speaker 1: stupid and I was kind of lucky I was getting
Speaker 1: away with it and people hadn't figured out how stupid
Speaker 1: I was. And so part of that that fear, that
Speaker 1: self doubt, that self loathing, that lack of self belief
Speaker 1: that led me to over analyze and overthink so many
Speaker 1: things and so many things that I could have done
Speaker 1: that I didn't do. Opportunities I could have taken or
Speaker 1: could have created, and results I could have produced I didn't.
Speaker 1: Because I overthought everything. I created my own form of psychological, emotional,
Speaker 1: and behavioral paralysis. I overthought the shit out of everything.
Speaker 1: So I think there are a couple of things to
Speaker 1: factor in or think about and one is, you know,
Speaker 1: like what can I do and what can't I do?
Speaker 1: Or perhaps a better question is what's in my control
Speaker 1: and what's not in my control? And we spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time overthinking things that are actually flawed beliefs
Speaker 1: like I'm not good enough. If I do this, they
Speaker 1: won't like me, they won't love me. I will And
Speaker 1: by the way, of course, some people are going to
Speaker 1: not like you, and some things you're going to be
Speaker 1: shit at, and some things you will fail at, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you will look silly, and sometimes you will get embarrassed,
Speaker 1: as will I, as have I many times. But in
Speaker 1: order to at least create some kind of progress in
Speaker 1: this space of overthinking and turning down the volume on it,
Speaker 1: a little part of that is being mature enough and
Speaker 1: emotionally and psychologically resilient enough to say I could fail,
Speaker 1: I could look silly, I could fall down. It might
Speaker 1: not work, some people might not like it or me,
Speaker 1: it might not be a positive outcome, and that's okay,
Speaker 1: and not just say that, but be true in that
Speaker 1: it's okay. I might fuck up, I might fail, and
Speaker 1: it's okay. And also tacking on to the end of
Speaker 1: that because I know when I do hard things when
Speaker 1: I do take a chance, when I do step out,
Speaker 1: when I do allow myself to be vulnerable and get uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and perhaps put myself in a process or a situation
Speaker 1: where the outcome might not be what I want, and
Speaker 1: I could get all of those things embarrassed or or
Speaker 1: rejected or whatever it is. In the middle of that,
Speaker 1: I learn about me. In the middle of that, I
Speaker 1: developed skill and knowledge and understanding and awareness and competence
Speaker 1: and resilience. And it's not until we step into our fears,
Speaker 1: or face our fears, or lean in a little bit
Speaker 1: that quite often the volume goes down on the overthinking.
Speaker 1: So overthinking is generally about fear. What is the fear?
Speaker 1: What am I afraid of? I was very afraid for
Speaker 1: a very long time of all of those things that
Speaker 1: I said, not being good enough, not being smart enough,
Speaker 1: being embarrassed, being a failure, what people. I was very
Speaker 1: worried about what people thought of me, because I felt
Speaker 1: and nobody did this to me. This was just a
Speaker 1: byproduct of things. And I don't blame anyone, and I'm
Speaker 1: not mad at anyone, but one of the byproducts of
Speaker 1: my childhood and my teenage years was that I didn't
Speaker 1: feel enough, good enough, attractive enough, skinny enough, light enough,
Speaker 1: smart enough, creative enough, funny enough, socially acceptable enough. I
Speaker 1: didn't feel all of those things. Now, the truth was
Speaker 1: that I probably was enough. But being enough and believing
Speaker 1: that you're enough are different things. So the challenge for
Speaker 1: us is not to find some magic switch to turn
Speaker 1: off the overthinking, but to rather understand ourselves and understand
Speaker 1: our overthinking. What is the source of this cognitive mayhem?
Speaker 1: Why is it so busy in my head? What am
Speaker 1: I really really scared of. I'm scared of failure. I'm
Speaker 1: scared of rejection. I'm scared of having no money. I'm
Speaker 1: scared of being uncomfortable or embarrassment or uncertainty, your unfamiliarity.
Speaker 1: What if I took that chance? What if I just
Speaker 1: addressed all of this with courage? What if I went, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: all of those things could be happed, could happen, But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a decision. I'm going to step forward.
Speaker 1: I'm going to step up, not down. I'm going to
Speaker 1: take a chance. I'm going to lean in, and quite often,
Speaker 1: if not most of the time, what happens is that
Speaker 1: thing that we were terrified of proves to be false.
Speaker 1: It proves to be something that we didn't need to
Speaker 1: be that scared of. And when we do it, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we change our relationship with that thing
Speaker 1: that was terrifying, and now instead of it managing us,
Speaker 1: we start to manage it. The fear goes down our
Speaker 1: relationship with that thing. We do something uncomfortable, we do
Speaker 1: something we were scared of. We do something that perhaps
Speaker 1: we didn't think we could do. We do it, or
Speaker 1: we do a version of it. We build confidence, skill, resilience,
Speaker 1: and now we're overthinking less. Do I ever think it
Speaker 1: disappears for most of us. No, I think it's part
Speaker 1: of the human condition. I mean, thinking a lot is
Speaker 1: not the same as overthinking thinking a lot and and
Speaker 1: being creative and solving problems and navigating and negotiating life
Speaker 1: from that kind of epicenter of us, which is our mind.
Speaker 1: That's very normal. I'm talking in this conversation about the overthinking,
Speaker 1: that destructive overthinking that can derail our power, possibilities and potential.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and
Speaker 1: wrap up. All right, we're back. So I don't know
Speaker 1: how good that was today. I'm overthinking how good that was.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was brilliant, but I'm opening the door.
Speaker 1: I could almost press the delete button on this episode,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to. I'm not going to. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give in to that fear. It's funny
Speaker 1: that I have been overthinking this conversation about overthinking with you,
Speaker 1: about how I might share it articulated, because I don't
Speaker 1: have an answer, you know what I mean. I like
Speaker 1: in inverted commas. I don't have and I've thoughts and ideas.
Speaker 1: So in terms of opening the door and moving forward
Speaker 1: on this for you and starting to get the wheels
Speaker 1: turning on being less controlled by fear and being less
Speaker 1: of a chronic overthinker, my questions for you are these. One,
Speaker 1: what fear is at the core of your overthinking? It
Speaker 1: might be many things, but I think there might be
Speaker 1: a consistent, reoccurring theme for many people. It's the fear
Speaker 1: of discomfort, whether that's physical, mental, emotional, social, or financial discomfort.
Speaker 1: But what fear is at the core of your overthinking?
Speaker 1: And also question two, I'm not even charging you for
Speaker 1: this second question. I'm chucking it in. Fuck it. It's
Speaker 1: how I roll. Question two is what am I currently
Speaker 1: wasting energy on? What am I obsessing over? What am
Speaker 1: I overthinking? What am I focusing on? Because where your
Speaker 1: mind is, your emotion, where your emotions are, your body is,
Speaker 1: and where all of that is, you are. What am
Speaker 1: I currently wasting energy on that I need to let
Speaker 1: go of. I'm going to overthink this episode for the
Speaker 1: next day, so yeah,