Ep 13: Overwhelmed, Overthinking, Over it...

Goals can feel really overwhelming at the beginning and when we combine that overwhelm with overthinking we escalate the goal into something that feels virtually impossible! In this episode I really want to help you break free from the overwhelm and the overthinking and take back control. 

About me: 

I'm Emma Bradbury, a personal development coach specialising in NLP and mBIT coaching techniques and a Level 2 Fitness instructor and Level 3 Personal Trainer. 

I'm passionate about about transformation from the inside out, helping my clients to get fitter and stronger both in mind and body.

I work with clients in-person at my training and coaching centre in Poulton-le-Fylde on the Fylde Coast and online. 

You can find me here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095409783100

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmabradburycoaching?igsh=MXRxNWVib3kwczV4dA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Website: www.emmabradburycoaching.co.uk

Email: emma@emmabradburycoaching.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Hi, and welcome to week three of our mini series of achieving a goal. Any goal, your choice of goal. The goal that you set two weeks ago now. So this is week three of 12. And what I'm wanting to do every week is just give you a little bit more of something to think about that's going to help you move you closer to your goal. So I'm wondering if this week you started overthinking it, if you started to feel like there's a lot of mental overwhelm in the work that you're doing, in picking up on those thought traps, in reframing them, in thinking, am I getting it right? And is it putting you off keeping going with your goal? Are you thinking, oh god, it's not worth it? So this is to hopefully help you understand the overthinking and put something in place to help. So I'm going to help you understand why our minds can become really busy, why we get stuck in the cycle of overthinking, and how we can spot these patterns so that we can pick them out, make sense of them, feel calmer and back in control. Because sometimes the problem isn't that you have too much to do. You know, I can't focus on my goal this week because I've got this to do and that to do, and I've got to be here, there, and everywhere. Sometimes the problem is that in our heads we're just trying to solve everything at once. We might be thinking about something that happened yesterday, about something we need to do tomorrow, about what someone said to us, about what we should have said back, about what could go wrong, about what we haven't yet done. And before you know it, your brain is running through a million different scenarios while you're just trying to make a cup of tea. So you do not have to solve every thought the moment it appears, okay? A thought that pops into your head is not an instruction, it's not a fact, and sometimes it's not something that requires your immediate attention. Sometimes it's just your brain picking up on something, trying to create something certain in a situation where certainty isn't actually available there and then. So I want to help you to understand why overthinking happens, to recognize your own mental overwhelm patterns, learn how to interrupt those racing thoughts that are going round and round in your head, create a calmer, more intentional response to any uncertainty, and give your brain something something safe to focus on instead. Because we all know that overthinking doesn't actually solve any problems, just makes them worse, just knots everything up into a big knotty ball. Our brains are designed to protect us, they are constantly scanning the world around us for problems, for threats, for uncertainty, for things that need our attention. And we find that incredibly helpful when we have an actual problem that need that need does need solving. But sometimes our brain doesn't know the difference between there's something I need to do, and there's something I just need to keep thinking about. And that's where overthinking can start. So you might think, well, I'm just trying to work it out. I'm just trying to prepare for something, I'm just trying to make the right decision. I'm just trying to understand what's happening or what happened. But thinking about something repeatedly doesn't bring you closer to a solution. In fact, it just creates that loop. The brain asks a question, you try to answer it, the answer creates another question, the question creates another worry, and suddenly you're exhausted and you haven't actually moved anything forward. And that is why overthinking can feel so draining. Because your body may be sitting still, but your mind is working like the clappers. So a really useful way to understand all this is to look at the overthinking loop. So something happens, or maybe nothing happens, but you imagine something might happen, and that becomes the trigger. Then a thought appears. So for example, the trigger might be your boss sends you a message saying, Can we have a chat tomorrow? And the thought instantly is, what does that mean? And then the brain starts searching for an answer. Have I done something wrong? Is my boss unhappy with me? Am I going to lose my job? Am I in trouble? What if something really bad happens? And the more you think about it, the more real and urgent the situation begins to feel. Then comes the emotional response. Might be anxiety, tension, fear, stress. And because the brain doesn't like uncertainty, it keeps thinking. Because it believes that if I just think about this enough, I can make myself feel safe. But more often than not, the complete opposite happens. The more you think, the more anxious you become, the more anxious you become, the more you think, the more crazy scenarios you catastrophise in your head, and now you're stuck in the loop. So the pattern might look like trigger, thought, emotion, more thinking, more emotion, and so on and so forth. And the important thing to understand is that the goal isn't ever to stop yourself from having worrying thoughts because that's not realistic. We're always going to. But the goal is to start automatically letting those thoughts escalate and then following them down the rabbit hole. So your thoughts are not commands. Okay, this is something to remember. You can have a thought without needing to let it impact you, without needing to do something about it, to engage with it. You can think, what if something goes wrong? And you can respond, well, that's a possibility my brain's going to create, but it's not a fact. Or you can think, I should have done more. And you can respond, well, that's just a thought. I can choose whether it's useful right now, and and it's not. And you can think, I have to work this out immediately, right now. But you might respond, well, maybe I do. I do have to figure it out, but I don't have to solve it at this exact moment. Because often the thought itself is never the problem, it's the meaning that we give to the thought, the amount of attention we give it, the amount of airtime we give it. So you can choose not to give it your full attention. Turn the volume down. So have a go at identifying your own overthinking loop. Think of a situation where your mind might regularly become busy or overwhelmed. It might be when you have to have a difficult conversation, or it might be a decision that you need to make. It might be that something someone said is playing on your mind. You might be thinking about your health or your future, work or money, relationships, feeling like you're not doing enough. And ask yourself, what is the trigger? So what situation tends to start that overthinking? And then ask, what is the first thought that usually appears? What does your mind immediately start saying to you? And then ask yourself, what feeling does that thought create? Because we all have patterns, we all default to the same feelings. It might be anxiety, might be fear, guilt, pressure, uncertainty. And then finally, what do you do next? Do you replay the conversation? Do you search for answers? Do you ask everybody else what they think, what they would do? Do you put off making a decision? Do you procrastinate? Do you try to predict every possible outcome? So this is your personal overthinking loop. And as I say, with everything, the first step to anything is awareness. So the first step to changing a pattern is becoming aware of it. Because you can't change a pattern that's running on autopilot. So you've identified your overthinking loop. Now you've got to interrupt it. You've got to interrupt the loop. You can use a really simple NLP technique to help you do that. So the first thing you need to do is notice when you're caught in that loop. There'll be telltale signs. It might be that your thoughts are going round and round, you can't think of anything else, you're letting nothing else in. It might be that you keep asking the same question over and over. You're imagining multiple negative outcomes. You're holding yourself stiffly, so you're physically tense. Or you feel like you need to solve something immediately. There's a sense of urgency. And when you notice that happening, when you start to identify those triggers within yourself and notice them, which you will now, because you've you've erased your awareness, you've listened to this podcast, you will now start to become aware of them. Not all of them, not overnight, but in time. Say to yourself, this is a thinking loop. Not oh my god, something awful's gonna happen. Not I'm losing control. Not what can I do? What can I do? Just this is the thinking loop, and what that does is it just gives you a beat, it just gives you a minute, it creates separation between you and the pattern that your mind is running. So you're not overthinking anymore. You are the person that's noticing the overthinking and doing something about it, and that gives you a choice, gives you control, you can then decide if you're gonna address it there and then, is it realistic? Or if you're gonna park it until you can think it through in a much more measured way. So when you notice your mind starting to race, you'd notice those patterns, they're becoming familiar now. Stop and name it. Say to yourself, I am having the thought that I've made the wrong decision, that something might go wrong, that I need to solve this problem right now. And instead of saying, I've made the wrong decision, you say, I'm having the thought that I've made the wrong decision. So you've created that separation. Thought's still there, but you're no longer automatically believing it. So then ask yourself a better question. Ask, is this thought useful right now? So remember what we've said before. Is this putting me closer towards my goal or pushing me further away? If it's useful, then it might be taking you towards your goal. If it's not, it's pushing you further away. So I still have the question: is this thought useful right now rather than is this thought true? Because sometimes we don't know whether something is true or not in this in the heat of the moment. But we can ask whether it's useful, and we generally know that. Is this thought helping me take positive action, or is it making me feel worse? And if it's a useful thought, then what is something I can do right now? And if it isn't useful, you say, I don't need to solve this right at the moment, I'll I'll park it until later. And then bring yourself back to the present. No, it's just what's happening around you. Focus on something else, take your attention away. Because actually, you can calm yourself by returning to the present moment. And when we're calmer, we can think of things in a much more measured and realistic way. So you're installing a new response. So you're over your old pattern might be uncertainty, overthinking, feeling anxious, overthinking even more. Whereas your new pattern might be uncertainty, starts the same, but then noticing that thought, creating the distance, choosing a youthful action and returning to the present. So the old response, going back to our example of the boss, can I have a chat in the morning? The old response might be, well, I don't know what they meant by that message. And you spend the next three hours analysing it and coming up with all sorts of different scenarios. The new response might be, I notice I'm trying to solve something, I don't currently have enough information to solve. Is there an action I can take right now? And if the answer is no, then park it. Doesn't mean you're ignoring it, just means you're refusing to let that uncertainty take over your entire day. And that is something quite different. So the challenge this week is to notice when your mind starts to go into overdrive. Don't judge yourself, that doesn't help. Don't say, oh, here we go again. Just notice it and say, This is a thinking loop. This is what Emma was on about on that podcast. I know now I'm having a thought, but it's not useful right now, so I'm not gonna do anything with it. You don't have to solve every thought the moment they pop into your head. You can pause, you can breathe, you can park them. Don't let overthinking and overwhelm take away from the goal that you set two weeks ago. Because it will. That's when we give up. I don't want any of you to give up on this goal. So let me know how you get on with it. And I'll be back next week. I hope you will be too.