How I Stopped Overthinking
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the speaker shares five practical strategies to overcome overthinking, a habit that has hindered them in the past. They explain the difference between past and future overthinking, highlighting anxiety as a root cause. The strategies include thinking in terms of experiments, considering expected value, using fear as a compass, maintaining consistent action despite overthinking, and consulting a mental board of advisors. These techniques aim to shift the focus from over-analyzing to taking action, ultimately helping viewers pursue their goals without being paralyzed by fear and doubt.
Takeaways
- 🤔 Overthinking is often categorized with analysis paralysis, where excessive thinking prevents action.
- 🔮 Overthinking typically involves constructing elaborate narratives about past events or future possibilities, leading to anxiety and fear.
- 🏃♂️ The opposite of overthinking is acting by instinct, which can be a problem of acting too rashly without enough thought.
- 👂 Brene Brown's definition of fear and anxiety helps differentiate between immediate threats and potential future threats.
- 🦁 Our brains, particularly the amygdala, are attuned to social threats due to evolutionary reasons, which can trigger overthinking in social situations.
- 🧪 Thinking in terms of 'experiments' can alleviate the pressure of decision-making by fostering curiosity and reducing the fear of outcomes.
- 🎰 The concept of 'expected value' (EV) in decision-making can help determine if an action is worth taking by weighing potential outcomes against their probabilities.
- 🧭 Fear can act as a compass, indicating that the scarier option might be the one that leads to growth and should be pursued.
- 🔄 Consistent action is key to overcoming overthinking; it's important to keep taking steps even while analyzing.
- 🧘♂️ The 'Mental Board of Advisors' (MBA) is a strategy to combat overthinking by seeking advice from admired individuals in one's mind.
- 💡 The ultimate goal is to shift from a bias towards overthinking to a bias towards action, using these strategies to move forward.
Q & A
What are the five practical strategies discussed in the video to combat overthinking?
-The video does not explicitly list five strategies, but it does discuss several, including thinking in terms of experiments, considering the expected value of actions, using fear as a compass, maintaining consistent action despite overthinking, and consulting a 'mental board of advisors' for guidance.
What is the definition of overthinking as mentioned in the video?
-Overthinking, as described in the video, falls under the same category as analysis paralysis, where individuals stop themselves from doing things because they are over-analyzing them in their heads, often under the misconception that more thinking will lead to better decisions.
What is the difference between 'analysis paralysis' and 'act by instinct' as per the video?
-Analysis paralysis is the state where one overthinks to the point of inaction, while 'act by instinct' is the opposite problem where a person acts too rashly without sufficient thought, often leading to less informed decisions.
Why does overthinking often lead to regretful living according to the video?
-Overthinking can lead to regretful living because it prevents individuals from following their dreams and pursuing what they truly want due to excessive worry and analysis, which ultimately stops them from taking necessary actions.
How does the video relate anxiety and fear to overthinking?
-The video explains that overthinking is often rooted in anxiety or fear, particularly the fear of potential future threats to one's well-being, which triggers the brain's response to social threats and leads to a cycle of overanalysis.
What is the concept of 'thinking in terms of experiments' as a strategy to overcome overthinking?
-Thinking in terms of experiments involves treating potential actions as experiments rather than high-stakes decisions. This mindset reduces pressure and allows for curiosity and wonder to guide actions, making it easier to take steps without being paralyzed by overthinking.
What does the video suggest about the relationship between expected value and decision-making?
-The video suggests using the concept of expected value from probability theory to weigh decisions. By considering the magnitude of potential outcomes and their likelihood, one can determine if the action has a positive or negative expected value, guiding whether it's worth pursuing.
How does the video recommend using fear as a guide for decision-making?
-The video recommends using fear as a compass, suggesting that if something feels scary or outside of one's comfort zone, it might be the right thing to do, as growth often occurs in uncomfortable situations.
What does the 'mental board of advisors' concept involve, and how can it help with overthinking?
-The 'mental board of advisors' is a conceptual tool where one imagines advice from people they admire. By considering what these individuals might say in a given situation, it helps to shift the bias from overthinking to taking action.
How does the video connect consistent action with overcoming overthinking?
-The video emphasizes that consistent action is the foundation for overcoming overthinking. It suggests that while it's okay to think things through, it should not prevent consistent effort or action, ensuring progress even when thoughts are overwhelming.
What is the video's stance on the idea that overthinking can be helpful in certain situations?
-The video implies that overthinking can be helpful in understanding and analyzing situations but warns against letting it paralyze action. It advocates for a balance where overthinking is tempered with consistent action and decision-making based on positive expected value.
Outlines
🤔 Overcoming Overthinking: Strategies for Action
The speaker introduces the video's focus on overcoming overthinking, a habit that has hindered personal and professional growth. They share their own experiences with overthinking and its impact on significant life decisions, such as starting a business and relationships. The concept of overthinking is explored in the context of analysis paralysis, where excessive thinking prevents action. The speaker promises to discuss strategies to combat this issue and differentiates between past event overthinking and future event overthinking, with a focus on the latter's role in causing anxiety and fear, which are often the root causes of overthinking.
🧪 Experimentation as a Cure for Overthinking
The speaker presents the first strategy to combat overthinking: viewing decisions as experiments. This mindset shift reduces the pressure associated with outcomes, allowing for curiosity and wonder to guide actions instead of fear of failure. The concept of expected value is introduced as a tool to evaluate decisions based on potential long-term gains or losses. The speaker uses personal anecdotes, such as starting a YouTube channel, to illustrate how treating actions as experiments can lead to learning and growth, ultimately resulting in positive outcomes.
🛣️ Fear as a Compass: Navigating Overthinking
Building on the previous strategies, the speaker suggests that fear can act as a compass, indicating the direction for growth and action. They argue that discomfort and fear often signal opportunities for stepping out of one's comfort zone. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of consistent action, even in the face of overthinking. They share insights from their YouTube Academy, where they teach the importance of regular content creation over perfecting every detail. The idea is to maintain momentum through consistent efforts, which can override the paralysis caused by overthinking.
🏋️♂️ Consistency Over Perfection: A Key to Overcoming Overthinking
The speaker continues to stress the importance of consistency in action, using the example of health and fitness routines. They admit to their own struggles with starting a workout regimen due to overthinking and highlight the advice from friends who emphasized the importance of just starting and being consistent. The speaker introduces the concept of the 'Mental Board of Advisors' (MBA), a strategy to consult imagined advice from respected individuals to guide decision-making and encourage action over inaction.
📈 Bias Towards Action: The Final Strategy Against Overthinking
In the concluding part of the script, the speaker summarizes the strategies discussed and emphasizes the need to replace the bias towards overthinking with a bias towards action. They suggest that most people, including themselves, tend to overanalyze situations when what is needed is decisive action. The speaker encourages viewers to seek feedback through action, learn from it, and iterate, rather than remaining static due to overthinking. They also promote a previous video on overcoming procrastination, linking it to the theme of the current video.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Overthinking
💡Analysis Paralysis
💡Experiment
💡Expected Value (EV)
💡Fear as a Compass
💡Consistency
💡Mental Board of Advisors (MBA)
💡Bias Towards Action
💡Anxiety
💡Stoicism
💡Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Highlights
The video discusses five practical strategies to combat overthinking, a common issue that can hinder personal and professional growth.
Overthinking is compared to analysis paralysis, where excessive thought prevents action.
The speaker shares personal experiences where overthinking nearly stopped significant life events, such as starting a business or a YouTube channel.
Overthinking is categorized into past event overthinking and future event overthinking, with a focus on the latter's impact on decision-making.
Anxiety and fear are identified as the root causes of overthinking, with a distinction made between fear as a response to immediate threats and anxiety as a worry about future threats.
The concept of 'thinking in terms of experiments' is introduced as a strategy to alleviate the pressure of decision-making.
The idea of 'expected value' from probability theory is applied to life decisions to determine if an action is worth taking.
Fear is posited as a compass, indicating the direction of growth and suggesting that the scarier option might be the more beneficial one.
The importance of consistent action is emphasized, even when overthinking, to ensure progress and learning.
The concept of a 'Mental Board of Advisors' is introduced to help guide decisions by imagining advice from admired figures.
The video suggests that overthinking often stems from a bias towards anxiety rather than action, and encourages a shift towards action.
The speaker shares a personal anecdote about starting a YouTube channel as an experiment, leading to significant personal growth.
The video touches on the evolutionary aspect of overthinking, relating it to social threats and the human brain's response to fear.
A comparison is made between the immediate response to fear and the tendency to overthink in response to anxiety about future events.
The idea that social risks, such as rejection or judgment, are often the triggers for overthinking in modern contexts is explored.
The video concludes with a call to action, encouraging viewers to move from overthinking to taking action in their lives.
A reference is made to a related video on overcoming procrastination, suggesting further resources for viewers interested in personal development.
Transcripts
hey friends welcome back to the channel
in this video we are going to be sharing
I'm going to be talking about five
practical strategies that help me stop
overthinking now I have been an
overthinker all my life and overthinking
has nearly stopped me from doing lots of
things that have ended up being very
good for me overthinking nearly stopped
me from starting my business from
starting my YouTube channel and from
asking my future wife out on our first
date but over the years I have found
strategies that have been actually quite
helpful in combating this natural desire
that me and I've heard other people have
to just overthink the hell out of things
and that's what we're going to talk
about in the video so firstly let's talk
about what is overthinking in the first
place and generally if you search
Wikipedia overthinking comes under
broadly the same category as analysis
paralysis and that's basically where we
stop ourselves from doing things because
we're in our heads about those things
too much and we are sort of thinking
that the more we think about the thing
the more information we're going to get
and that's in theory going to result in
a more legit decision than if we just
acted sooner rather than later now the
opposite of analysis paralysis is X
extinct by instinct which is kind of
funny and that's basically the opposite
problem where you're the sort of person
that acts too rashly and you don't think
of things enough but usually for me and
most people that I know it tends to be
the other way it's not that we struggle
with like acting too fast it's that we
struggle with acting too slow because
we're just stuck in our heads trying to
overthink all the time so where does
overthinking come from and why do we do
it and then I promise we're going to
talk about the specific strategies
afterwards but essentially overthinking
there's probably two types of it there's
like past overthinking past event
overthinking and then there's future
event overthinking now past event
overthinking is when someone has said
something or done something or something
has happened in our lives and we like to
construct this mental narrative about
the thing and we tell ourselves this
elaborate story like oh that person sent
me this sort of text and therefore that
must mean a b c d e f g and we construct
this ridiculous narrative around it that
just serves to make us feel bad when in
reality that person probably didn't even
mean it that way they probably weren't
thinking of it in those ways and we just
sort of make ourselves miserable by
ascribing all of these different
different this different sequence of
events to something that could be just
completely innocuous but that's not the
kind of overthinking I want to focus on
here I mean the solution to that is
stoicism and like CBT and a bunch of
other things along that category
um I like to think about the future kind
of overthinking where it's analysis
paralysis in terms of we want to do a
thing in the future but we find
ourselves overthinking about the thing
and then it stops us from actually doing
the thing and I think it's really that
kind of overthinking that leads us to
not following our dreams and ultimately
living a life that we regret because we
were in our heads too much we over
analyzed and that stopped us from going
after the things that we really wanted
to and broadly the reason that happens
is anxiety slash fear now I'm going to
take a page out of brene Brown's atlas
of the heart which defines anxiety and
fear in different ways and I think this
is actually quite a quite a helpful
helpful definition to appreciate
basically what she says is that fear is
a response to a threat in the moment and
that threat might be a threat to your
survival so for example if a lion were
to walk into this room right now I'd
feel fear because there is a threat to
to my survival right now whereas anxiety
is where I perceive that in the future
there may be a threat to my survival and
so it's worrying about this potential
thing that may happen at some point in
the future now no one overthinks when it
comes to bug standard fear if a line
came in I'd run I wouldn't overthink the
hell out of out of the running but we
all tend to overthink when it comes to
the anxiety side of things when there is
some sort of thing in the future where
we think that like ah if this thing I'm
thinking of doing goes badly that could
be a potentially huge threat to my
survival and generally it's not really
our physical survival mostly when we
think of overthinking in the in the
modern world it's not like oh I'm really
worried I'm going to be jumping over a
cliff or something like it it tends to
be more about social risks I'm really
concerned I'm overthinking uploading my
first YouTube video I'm overthinking oh
asking that person out on a date because
what if they rejected me and what if
that would be bad and the amygdala which
is the part of our brain that deals with
fear and threat and stuff is very very
attuned to social threat because back in
the day back in our caveman times
um any kind of social threat if that
meant that you got Outcast from the
group suddenly that means you're
basically dead because now you have no
friends to help protect you and that
thing which was adaptive back in the day
that stopped us from taking risks and
that caused us to evolve this
overthinking mechanism it's now not
particularly helpful in the current
world today where we're still operating
in caveman brain mode where it's like oh
my God if my friends are gonna judge me
that's going to be bad for my survival
when in reality it's really not and so
recognizing that that really
overthinking is just when we are scared
of something there's a few different
things that I like to keep in mind that
helped me kind of take action despite my
tendency to overthink the first one is
what I call thinking in terms of
experiments and this is like a pretty
magical thing because I find that for me
whenever I'm overthinking or on the
verge of overthinking something I just
tell myself the phrase hey it's just an
experiment and there's something about
that word experiment that just
automatically takes all of the pressure
off the decision if for example I was
overthinking which I was uploading my
first couple of videos to my YouTube
channel ages ago when I was making
Musical singing covers
I kind of treated that as a bit of an
experiment hey it's just an experiment I
don't have to I'm not signing up to do
this forever it's just an experiment and
I'm going to see what happens I'm going
to see how I feel and it's like when
we're when we're thinking in terms of
experiments we're approaching things not
with a sense of wanting things to be a
certain way but we're approaching them
with Wonder and curiosity huh I wonder
how I would respond in this kind of
situation I wonder what it would be like
to try and film a video of me and my
friends singing a song and I wonder what
it would be like for me to edit that
video and that decision I made to run
the experiment essentially of making
music videos on my YouTube channel like
way back in the day ultimately taught me
how to edit videos and helped me get
over that first hurdle of putting myself
out there on YouTube with my channel
five years ago when this thing kind of
started so that was thinking in
experiments and I find that that really
does help my tendency to overthink
things secondly I find it really helpful
again to avoid overthinking to think
about the idea of expected value now in
the world of probability in the world of
gambling in the world of Poker and
actually in the world of anything in
general expected value is where you
multiply apply the magnitude of you know
good or bad with the probability of said
good or bad happening so for example if
I flipped a coin and if it landed heads
I was going to win a hundred dollars
then the expected value of the coin flip
would be 50 because there is a 50
likelihood of winning a hundred dollars
now this concept is super interesting
because if you start applying this to
your life then you start thinking in
terms of rather rather than in terms of
oh my God like is this decision going to
succeed if I ask that girl out is she
going to say yes you're not really
concerned about that all you're trying
to do is weigh up is this plus EB or
minus EV is it a positive expected value
if I were to do the thing enough times
would I expect that in the long run I
would come out on top or would I expect
that actually the risks do outweigh the
benefits of the thing and therefore it's
negative EV minus expected value and the
cool thing about this is that it removes
the kind of uh pressure on a single
decision and it's not so much of like
being wedded to the outcome of a
particular decision or a particular
course of action it's more about hey
it's plus EB it's worth running the
experiment anyway and it's like I was
interviewing a friend of mine Chris box
is a professional poker player and poker
players judge the quality of their
decisions not on the outcome but on
basically the quality of the decision
they made based on the information that
they had was it a good decision even if
it ended up losing it still could have
been the right decision because you know
that if you make enough of those
decisions over the long term you are
likely to come out on top and that's why
something like sending a cold email to
someone saying you want to grab coffee
with them is always plus EV it's like
there's basically zero downside to it
and if you do it enough times you're
probably going to get a response and
someone's probably going to say yes to
you similarly putting yourself out there
on the internet starting a blog or a
podcast or a YouTube channel these
things are generally plus EV you are
very unlikely to experience significant
downsides of them but if they go well as
in the case of this YouTube channel it's
completely changed my life it's a very
plus EV decision whatever the outcome
might be and so whenever I find myself
in this Loop of like overthinking stuff
and that analysis paralysis stops me
from doing anything I think like okay
what if I treated this as an experiment
and then what is the EV here if it's
plus EV I might as well just do the
thing and just not worry about the
specific outcome too much alrighty tip
number 3 is the idea that fear is your
compass I first came across this from my
friend Nathaniel Drew who is a fellow
YouTuber that that phrase put a lot of
things straight in my mind
because broadly what I've realized over
the years is that whenever I'm scared of
doing something it's probably the right
thing to do because really we're only
scared about doing things where we feel
uncomfortable in some way we feel like
it's out of our comfort zone and that is
where growth is found and so if I think
back to my life anytime I've made a
decision where I've been scared of it
I've always been glad of it and whenever
I've made a decision which is safer than
the option that feels scarier I've
always kind of thought oh maybe I maybe
I should have gone with a more scary
option and so these days when I'm at a
Crossroads and I find myself
overthinking one easy heuristic is fear
is my compass let me go towards the
option that scares me more because
chances are I'll be I'll be able to
learn more from that than the option
that's more within my comfort zone
alrighty tip number four for dealing
with overthinking is something that I I
do all the time when it comes to
publishing stuff publishing videos
podcasts blog posts like any kind of
creative thing any kind of business
thing which is that I'm allowed to
overthink all I want but it has to be on
the foundation of consistent action so
what do I mean by this I mean like I I
see this problem in my YouTuber Academy
all the time if you don't know I run a
course I teach people how to be
part-time YouTubers and everyone always
really really really struggles with
overthinking the hell out of their
YouTube channels because they're always
like oh I could upload this video but
it's not very good the production value
is not great the lighting's not great I
don't know how to speak to a camera I
don't know how to edit et cetera Etc et
cetera and because we teach them a bunch
of stuff in the course they get into
this overthinking analysis paralysis
mode whereas the people that succeed on
YouTube the ones you know you know are
students who do really well or the
people the creators that I know who've
succeeded on YouTube and any other
business and any other content thing
since the start of time have always
treated consistency as the fundamental
Bedrock whereby you just have to keep on
publishing videos every week on top of
that you know the way I think it is I
can overthink the hell I can I can
overthink all I would like but I have to
just keep on publishing the videos every
week and that means that overthinking
and Analysis is all well and good but
it's on top of consistent action which
means I'm never in the point and I've
done this occasionally and I've always
kind of regretted doing this but I don't
want to be in in the position where by
over analyzing I actually stop doing the
app action which is ultimately the thing
that matters similarly this sort of
attitude has stopped me from taking my
health seriously a lot because I would
always think that like oh you know I
couldn't possibly start working out I
couldn't possibly start running I
couldn't possibly start eating healthily
unless I had a completely firm plan and
unless I knew exactly what I was doing
and unless I read all the papers that
showed the evidence base on XYZ now I'd
speak to friends who were into running
or into working out and stuff and they'd
be like broke like just get started
honestly showing up and going to the gym
some more consistently is the main thing
for getting henched all of the other
stuff fine you can read about it but if
you don't show up to the gym regularly
it's just never going to happen for you
and so I try and kind of incorporate
that whenever I'm I'm worried about
overthinking final concept that I find
really helpful is something that my
Coach Corey introduced me to a few
months ago and I've been using it a lot
since then and that's the idea of the
MBA the mental Board of advisors one of
the mental Board of advisors a mental
Board of advisors is where you have
people in your brain people that you
admire living or dead you know it might
be creative as it might be authors it
might be entrepreneurs it might be your
parents it might be people you look up
to in some kind of way and you imagine
in your head like that's your mental
Board of advisors and you ask them for
advice on what you should do in a
situation so for me my mental Board of
advisors are like Tim Ferriss and Cal
Newport and Ryan holiday these are
people who write books who I I like
their writing basically and generally if
I'm overthinking a situation if I'm
analyzing the hell out of something that
I don't necessarily need to be I think
all right cool let's just mentally
consult my mental Board of advisors what
would Tim Ferriss say what would Derek's
ever say what would Cal Newport say what
would Ryan holiday say and it's like the
that actually gives me a reasonable idea
of what the reasonable plus EV response
in the situation is obviously my mental
construction of these people is never
really going to be able to predict the
future but that's not the point the
point is I just need to have a bias
towards action rather than a bias
towards anxiety and overthinking which
is kind of my default State and that's
really what combating overthinking in
this sense is all about it's all about
replacing our bias towards thinking
about stuff with a bias towards doing
stuff and recognize that if we are in
the thinking amp more than most people
then chances are we just need to nudge
ourselves more towards the action camp
and I've met very few people that are in
the action Camp who need to think harder
about decisions most of the people that
I meet including me we we tend to
struggle with this idea that we're over
analyzing things when really we should
just be acting because once we do the
thing then we get feedback and then we
can improve and then we can iterate over
time but at least we're moving forward
rather than staying static anyway those
were just some general thoughts on
overthinking hopefully you found them
somewhat helpful if you like this and
then you might like to check out five
strategies on how to beat
procrastination whereas this which is a
similar chilled out video where I just
kind of walk around here and talk about
my thoughts on how I personally beat
procrastination which is another thing
that I like many of us struggle with as
well so check out that video over there
thank you so much for watching do hit
the Subscribe button if you aren't
already and I'll see you in the next
video bye
uh still recording isn't he what a snake
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