One of the most dangerous things that you can do when you’re planning and actually going down your path to success is overthinking things. Overthinking is a very common problem for people, and it’s also one of the most destructive.
It can lead to you falling off your path, doing things poorly, and even giving up on your dreams as a whole. There’s nothing worse than thinking about something so much that you actually end up doing it worse than you would’ve before.
Overthinking occurs when you worry so much about something that you spend too much time thinking about it, and end up getting it stuck in your own head so there’s room for nothing else, eventually leading you to make poor decisions and fail.
People like this will get so caught up in all the semantics and little things that they forget the bigger picture and start to stress themselves out about things that barely even matter.
For example, you might want to ask your boss for a raise one day. If you spend the whole night prior thinking about all the possible questions he’ll ask you and rehearsing your entire speech again and again, you’ll start to stress out about all the what-ifs.
You’ll start to think about what happens if he asks you why and what if he doesn’t like your answer. After awhile, you’ll worry about it so much that you might just not ask at all – you’ve talked yourself out of a move toward success.
Chances are, if you would’ve just had a loose plan that could be flexible and adjustable, it wouldn’t have been a very difficult conversation. You’re actively making things harder on yourself by being so worrisome that you stress yourself out over little things.
A part of this whole concept of overthinking comes from a desire to be perfect and not make mistakes. People need to realize, though, that this isn’t a realistic goal to have. Everyone is going to make mistakes along the way.
It’s only natural. Instead of wasting your time and energy worrying about what might happen and freaking out about the possibility of something going wrong, accept that things might go wrong, and that’s alright.
Mistakes are perfect opportunities for you to learn, develop, and grow. Everyone learns through their mistakes, whether they’re big or small. At the end of the day, you’re still going to be alive, and you’ll have a great deal of newfound knowledge that can help you improve in the future.