I don’t agree when people say you can “think too much”. I don’t think the thinking is the problem, the problem is your relationship to your thoughts. And how long you dwell on them.
Humans have a limited working memory, which is how many thoughts you can keep in your head at the same time. When I was in my 20s, I started noticing how easily I could get stuck in a thought. Hours would pass, and I would still be thinking about the same one thing, over and over again. It wouldn’t be from a fresh, original perspective, no, it would be the same thought, haunting my head.
And I would have no idea how to get out of it but to go for a walk. Sometimes, these thoughts would make me feel stuck for days on end, and no matter how hard I tried to think about something else, I realized I couldn’t get my mind off them. My mind was like a radio. Thoughts appeared regardless of what I thought of them.
That was not the worst part, though: the worst part was the power I gave to my thoughts. My thoughts could keep me from making decisions, make me feel stuck, convince me not to do something I wanted to do, and leave me in a state of self-doubt and uncertainty.
This brings me to the topic of today’s post:
How long can you afford to be stuck in a state of thinking?
I think we all know that different decisions deserve different amounts of time. For me, I found that:
A significant life decision might be allowed to take a few months.
A moderate decision might allow a few days to a week.
A small decision might not deserve more than a minute or two.
How long a decision deserves depends on your situation, how much time you have on your hands, or what kind of job or lifestyle you have. If you’re an analyst or a scientist, thinking about something might be your job. But you even need to choose what you dedicate your time and thoughts to. So I started asking myself:
How long can I afford to think about this?
It helped ground me to the fact that ultimately, I have to eventually make a decision and carry on with my life. Some decisions, like whether to accept a job offer, offer some wiggle room. You can negotiate a higher salary or better work-life balance. You can accept it, and if you don’t like it, you can move on and get a different job later. You can make a decision not because it has to be right, but because it will give you the right experience to help you make better decisions in the future.
If you’re still uncertain what to do, past the deadline, you can flip a coin. If it’s heads, you do it; tails, you don’t. If you get tails and feel like you want to flip “one more time” just to be on the safe side, go with heads. Listen to your gut, it wants to do it. I use the I Ching hexagram to make decisions, not because I believe in the power of fate, but because I believe in the power of unconscious suggestion. I flip my coins, I get my I Ching prediction, and I listen to my gut and let my mind choose an answer.
But after the decision, I’m still doubting about it!
Still, even if you know that you can only afford to think about a decision for a few minutes, you might not be able to control your thoughts. Even if you know you need to make a decision and stop thinking about something, your thoughts are going to keep coming at you. You decided to start dating, but now, you’re second-guessing it. Minutes before you’re about to go out the door, you’re thinking of sending a text message to cancel. On the bus, you’re still thinking about it, and during the date, you’re still trying to come up with a convenient excuse, should you decide that you want to end the date early. It makes it impossible to enjoy anything.
The first step is realizing that you are not these thoughts. Thoughts are just a tool your mind uses, not a way to navigate your reality. You don’t need to identify with any of these thoughts. Just because you’re thinking of canceling doesn’t mean that you want to cancel; your thoughts are just there to remind you that if you would like to cancel, this is how you would do it. The biggest problem is that we identify with our thoughts. We assume that just because we’re thinking about something, that means that’s how we feel.
You are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are just a tool.
The second step to disarming your thoughts is recognizing that most of your thoughts are silly. A majority of your thoughts are unnecessary. Most are random. Few have anything to do with you or your reality. Thoughts are self-contradicting. Many are excuses. Others are feeble attempts to predict your reality, even though you know that most of your predictions in the past have turned out to be false. Your thoughts have a terrible track record. So why should you take them so seriously? You can just listen to them, note that they appeared, and move on with your life.
Some people call themselves “Thinking Types,” quoting Carl Jung and Isabella Myers Briggs. They argue that their personal identity lies in their logic, their ability to solve problems, and their engagement in analytics, strategy, and rational decision-making. They think this is a normal, healthy way of life.
Jung would have said that a thinking type is a human being who has become controlled by their thoughts and has repressed their emotions, which have taken on an unconscious form, leading to irrational behaviours. Not a type. Not a healthy way of life. To be a “Thinking” type is not a prescription; it’s a diagnosis. Logic has nothing to do with who or what you are. You’re much more than your thoughts. Why use only a part of your brain when you can work with the whole?
You can choose to carry on with your day.
Even with your thoughts running through your mind, you can still carry on with your life. You can go out the door, show up at the party, dance, and continue about your day, despite any thoughts that pop up. In fact:
If you can convince your mind that, 100%, without a doubt, you are going to carry through with an activity, regardless of anything your thoughts have to say about it, your thoughts will actually give up and adapt. I’m not saying you should single-mindedly commit to a decision and never change your mind; I’m saying there’s a time for doubt, and there’s a time for decisions, and there’s a time for commitment.
See if you can hold yourself accountable to your choices and follow through. You can analyse what happened after the event, but you shouldn’t get stuck in the process of analysing something both before, during, and after the event. You’d be giving up way too much power to your thoughts, and you’d miss out on the actual experience.
If you know with absolute certainty that you will get on that rollercoaster, come what may, your thoughts will feel the resolve and will move on. If your thoughts smell uncertainty or doubt, however, they’ll intensify their attempt to “protect you” by coming up with random excuses and explanations.
So choose to ask yourself: How long can I afford to think about this?
And once you’ve hit your deadline, make your decision.
And once you’ve made your decision, commit 100% to it.
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