Why Do You Overthink

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I see that a lot of people, especially myself, have fallen into the trap of overthinking. We became afraid of the future because our minds always thought of all the risks and consequences. 

We spend our nights not sleeping but overthinking about what could happen in the future. At the end, we found ourselves much more stressed and depressed.

I, too, have a fear of programs that I have built in my organizations. I am afraid that people will not like it, or maybe the program is not happening. 

Sometimes, I blame other people and don’t take any action to fix the problem that my organization or I have. 

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Most of the time, I spend my time overthinking rather than taking any action towards success.

Not just about fear about something that I planned. Sometimes I’m afraid when I’m out of my comfort zone. When I reminded myself to take an action that outside of my comfort zone, I found myself becoming more afraid to take action.

So, that’s why I want to talk about overthinking in this article, which hopefully can help you overcome the fear of going out of your comfort zone and deal with overthinking.

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Overthinking

Overthinking is not just about thinking too much about the future. Overthinking is not just about planning the future so that we can hopefully guarantee success. In the end, we don’t have any control over future events. What the result could be is not in our control.

That’s why there are risk management jobs, etc., in the company to find the percentage of success and the risks that could happen. Even so, there’s no exact answer to whether the program will succeed or not.

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The illusion of control

Overthinking most of the time is the illusion of controlling things outside of our control, which can lead us to an unhappy life. We started to become much more anxious and stressed. It’s not a good idea to do that.

I experienced that, and I thought that the more I thought about it, the more I would find the answer that could relieve me.

Well, in reality, that is not happening. The world will never give you the answers. The world probably doesn’t care about what you think about the future or what could happen.

We can plan a lot, and suddenly things don’t go as planned. It’s because we don’t have control over the future results.

Proverbs

“The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the Lord.”

–Proverbs 21:31

We can see that in Proverbs, the victory rests with the Lord.

Disclaimer: Maybe you don’t have any religion or beliefs, but it’s still your opinion.

We are not alone in this world. We can’t control things that are outside of our control. We even can’t control whether our own hair grows white or black.

So have the humility to realize that we are not in our own world. We are in God’s world.

You can keep doing that. You can keep overthinking yourself until you “guarantee success” in your own definition. However, the amount of sacrifice that you have to make — the sacrifice of happiness and stress for your health — is not worth it, in my opinion.

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Why is that?

Because there’s a way that’s much better, and everyone can do that if they want to practice it. We don’t have to overthink every time we are faced with a problem. We don’t have to suffer every time we make a program. We just need to practice letting it go.

Letting go? No way! What would my organization or my life be like if I just let it go?

You are not letting it go entirely. You have the power to let go of the things that you can’t control. Most of the problem that we have is that we have the ego to control the result and other people to achieve the result according to our own will or definition.

We think that we can guarantee success, but in reality, we cannot.

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Humans can plan the future but not decide it

“In their hearts, humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”

–Proverbs 16:9

Don’t tire yourself out by thinking about things that are outside of your control; there are things that you need to think about. 

Events that you don’t know could happen, like having a friend come up to you or someone talk harassingly to you, are things that you don’t have control over.

Coming back to the control!

You have control. You can’t control how you feel or what reactions you want to give, but you have control over your responses. How you respond and how you handle things are in your control.

There’s no way your hand can suddenly jab other people without your permission, right? So, control your responses and let go of your reactions towards negativity.

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We are what we do and what we think

The more we surrender ourselves to God, the more we find peace within ourselves. Our minds easily fear problems in the future. Why don’t you let God do the rest and focus on the things that you need to do and have control over?

Practical Application

This is an example that might help you understand and implement it. When you are facing a big program or a big test in class or maybe at work,

1. Start thinking about what you want for the future first.

“I want to pass this test. I want to become the best and then get a promotion.”

2. Okay, you have the goal now. After that, know the things that are inside and outside of your control.

“Well, studying is inside of my control, but the result is actually outside of my control because there are teachers or bosses that grade my test. I have no control over that. My teacher and my boss have feelings or their own moods that could affect the grading. Once again, I have no control over that.”

3. Then focus all of your attention on things that are within your control.

“Okay, I want to study every night for two hours. That’s all I can do to increase my guarantee of success. I can start applying effective study methods. I can ask for help from my other friends about the test, etc.”

The more you focus on that, the more likely you are to succeed.

source

Arriving at the result

If, at the end, you succeed in the test, well, congratulations! Don’t forget to reward yourself and then evaluate what you can do better next time. If you end up failing the test, start to find out what you can do to fix it up with a remedial test or do better next time.

The test that we face might be a one-time test that we can’t redo. That’s why sometimes we fear the result. 

Even though you are afraid of what could happen in the future, you can still focus on what you can control and increase your confidence to face those fears.

Remember that you are not in control of what the result will be. No matter how hard you try or how little you work, the result still isn’t in our hands.

The act of letting go can sometimes lead to success, but the most important thing is that you become much calmer.

“Point is, you can’t get so hung up on where you’d rather be that you forget to make the most of where you are. 

Take a break from worrying what you can’t control. Live a little.”

–From “Passengers” Movie

. . .

I am Kevin Nokia, and I hope that from this article we can learn together and improve together. I hope you guys can give me criticism and suggestions to improve my writing.

Let’s build the community of writers.❤

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