Overthinking is a blessing in disguise, and only when you learn how to use it to your advantage will it lose its debilitating nature. It takes a brilliant mind to be an overthinker, and it takes brilliance to use it right.
We all think, sometimes too little, other times too much, but there are those rare people who tend to overthink. Overthinking takes a lot of focus and energy, and in the end, most people end up in a loop with no results.
It’s true that overthinking can take the best of you and leave you unable to cope with the informational overload. What the overthinker can never think of, though, is that overthinking itself becomes the main issue and problem that they didn’t manage to avoid.
When this becomes true, then our tendency to imagine outcomes and scenarios can create a perception in which everything is bound to go wrong, leaving us in lack of courage to pursue the ideas and dreams we have set for ourselves.
So, what makes a person an overthinker, and what are the symptoms? Here are 11 habits that overthinking comes with.
1. Seeking meaning in everything
It’s true that everything comes with some kind of meaning, and as an overthinker, you might know this very well. In fact, it’s the habit of overthinking that tends to remind you of it all the time.
The list of ‘meanings’ behind even the most trivial things is endless, if you start delving into it, as the question ‘Why?’ can be put on any situation. The real question is, will this information bring about a change?
It’s a very useful thing to be able to possess such a strong processing power, but why waste it on things that don’t deserve the ‘Why?’ and focus on the more important aspects of life?
2. Thinking more than doing
Thought comes before action. But what if everything stops at the thought that seems to be unfolding into millions of tinier thoughts to infinity? That’s how overthinking sometimes feels.
This analysis paralysis makes most overthinkers forget to take action, or ultimately let the debilitating process of overthinking to affect their feelings about that action. The mind’s ability to associate emotion with action is powerful, and this association goes all in the wrong way.
So, next time you catch yourself into this loop, simply jump out of it and jump into doing whatever you’re supposed to. The invigorating energy and emotions that come out of spontaneity and courageous actions will associate the action with positive feelings and help you to overcome the challenges as they come.
3. Solving problems makes you feel ecstatic
Overthinking gives one the ability to solve many problems, and that’s really the point of it. And when you come to that right solution, you can’t help but feel super ecstatic about it.
Now here’s a catch: with your powerful processing ability, try to analyze your thinking process, see how it functions, find its logic, and use that knowledge to skip over the pointless thoughts. This way you’ll come to solutions much faster. And in the end, there’s no such thing as a solution without a proper action, never forget that.
4. Always on the hunt for new information
You know well how much power there is to knowledge, and that’s why you never miss a new piece of information. And we’re talking about relevant and meaningful information, not whether someone got pregnant or if someone’s dog died.
For you, every day is a new opportunity to learn something new and you use this information in your thinking and reasoning processes later on. However, take everything with a grain of salt – truth changes in a matter of seconds sometimes.
5. You analyze everyone
You can’t help but analyze everything there is to analyze about a person. You don’t care about the trivialities that make up their day, but rather about what makes them tick, what inspires them, and what defines them.
Everything reveals something about a person, and you know the perfect way to connect the pieces of the puzzle a person is. Peering behind the façade is your favorite social activity, and you later use this knowledge to your advantage and to the advantage of those same people.
6. You often tend to be pessimistic
When you overthink, it’s unavoidable to get to those worst-case scenarios. And it’s in our nature to stick more to the negative – it’s our survival instinct that makes us focus on these things.
Of course, because of that, you can’t help but be pessimistic about many situations and decide not to dive in so as to stay on the safe side. However, great risks come with great rewards – never forget that.
7. You find simplicity as disturbing
With your mental complexity, simplicity oftentimes seems disturbing to you. It’s because you are always aware of how complex things are, and it’s absolutely puzzling to you to see something as simple, with not much to think about.
While this is, in fact, a great opportunity for the mind to relax in the simple, you can’t help but feel that there has to be something more to it, and this makes you feel disturbed. It feels like there’s a whole level of complexity behind the simple that your mind isn’t capable of getting a hold of.
That’s why you don’t prefer simple people – it feels like they are hiding something you can’t put your finger on, and you don’t like that.
8. You may feel like you’re suffering from anxiety
Anxiety and overthinking have a lot in common, really. But the main difference is that anxiety doesn’t focus on finding a solution and it only focuses on the worst-case scenarios. In the case of overthinking, your mind will race to every possibility, not only the worst ones.
However, getting to the negative outcomes may cause a feeling of anxiety which is natural to occur in people as a mechanism. This, however, doesn’t mean that you’re suffering from anxiety. It’s all natural – relax.
So, yes, overthinking is very complex in so many ways – but yet there is such power in the mind that tends to overthink that people would give everything to possess. Use this power to your advantage and allow your powerful processing ability to help you achieve things that others can’t even think are possible.
