“I read your articles,” a friend tells me, “well, skim them really. There’s a lot of analysis going on.” Pause. “You come across as someone who’s got … a lot of time on their hands for…”

“Navel gazing?” I suggest.

“Considering the minutia, was how I would have put it,” he clarified.

Every Tuesday I set about the task of exploring something that has come up for me that week: a life lesson, a story that has moved me, an idea that has presented itself from several sources — like the universe tapping on the front door, the windscreen and the bathroom mirror saying, “Hey, listen up.” I try to look closely. Dig deep.

According to Socrates, “the unexamined life is not worth living”. It seems he held personal and spiritual growth among the very purposes of human life: that by reflecting upon life, we gain a deeper understanding of who we are, and the patterns of behaviour we run, so that we are not, as later philosopher Santayana says, “condemned to repeat them”.

I’m a fan of old Soap-Crates (as my history teacher jokingly called him). We might even consider him the great- (times many) -granddaddy of coaching. His Socratic Method is a dialoguing technique of questioning and inquiry to stimulate insights, critical thinking and illuminate truths. What is coaching if not just that?

So I examine … in the hopes that others can relate and it saves them the trouble. In sharing, I tend to go into detail, true to my Meyers Briggs ‘N’ type personality, naturally leaning towards metaphor and analogy. I like a good story and I want to feel like I’ve covered every angle. Take a Rubik’s cube. Looking at it from only one side, it is just a white square, to another, a red square or a blue, etc. With enough curiosity we start to see it is all these things. Pull back objectively we might figure out it’s a game. If we’re a math genius, we might even work out the formula to the puzzle (which for the rest of us is available on YouTube). But where lies the rub is that if the cube is messed up, all the examining, the insight and the potential solutions in the world won’t actually solve it. This requires action.

I will admit that personally, I can take a thought and worry away at it, like picking at a tight knot. In the end, not only am I loosening the knot, I am unravelling the whole rope. I am an over-thinker. Statistically, I’m in good company considering my age bracket and gender. But anyone can get caught up in the ongoing, churning mental mill that is overthinking.

It is not completely without its benefits. Creatively speaking, overthinkers are rarely short on ideas and, as I mentioned, good at catching every angle of situation. But in fixating on an issue, we can get stuck in ‘analysis paralysis’, thrashing through every eventuality, dissecting every minute detail that has already occurred (What did that mean? How did he take my response? etc). In doing so, we often end up wasting a boatload more time and energy than it would have taken to just address a concern or deal with the challenge.

For serious overthinkers this process can be exhausting and lead to stress, anxiety and depression as we get mired in running and rerunning negative thoughts and their associated feelings. Worse yet, studies show that overthinking actually impairs our decision-making abilities, in the end clouding our rational problem-solving as well as interrupting our motivation and initiative.

There seems to be a fine line between thinking just enough, and getting stuck there. And for anyone reading this and identifying with the latter, here are some tools I’ve found to help us get back into action:

1. Create a project plan. Setting out goals with a map of how we intend to reach them, gives us a positive framework in which to focus our thinking. Unstructured thinking can easily end up spinning out of control, looping or wearing us into a rut. When a thought arises, ask: what are the actions that would take this forward to a positive and beneficial conclusion? Turn this into a plan. Take the first step.

2. Look at the real-world evidence for your thinking. Capturing our errant thinking on paper can help get swirling thoughts out of our heads and allow us to look at them more objectively. Look for where we might just be catastrophising past events or potential outcomes? Are our negative assumptions realistic? Based on what evidence? For example, if we put ourselves in the other person’s shoes, would we react the ways we are contemplating/obsessing that they will?

Is our thinking helpful? Good reminders: we cannot control other people’s reactions and perfection does not exist. Can we accept that we have done/are doing our best, take action to move forward and let the rest go?

3. Enforce a time limit. Make the most of the thinking process by setting a time limit to really chew, ruminate, delve into a thought or problem.

Have pen and paper handy to get thoughts down and separate into useful, actionable items and self-indulgent, negative tailspin, which can then be shredded, cathartically ripped up or tossed on the bonfire.

4. Consider the really big picture. Back to the Rubik’s cube analogy. If that was our ‘problem’, drawing back further still we can view it in the context of everything else. How important is this really?

This thing I am spending all this time and energy thinking about, will I even care about it in a month? Six months? A year? Five? If ‘yes’, use tool number one. If not, can I move on to something more useful?

5. Get involved in something. If overthinking and the constant buzz of our own thoughts is jamming our frequency and bogging us down, it can be sweet relief to just get out and do something. (Action, in any form, is truly the antidote). If we cannot take direct action on what it is we’re thinking about, we can at least distract ourselves. Doing an activity that takes our mental and physical concentration, absorbs us and draws us out of our heads: games (from tennis to cards), hobbies (knitting, playing an instrument, cooking, reading a great book, listening to a TED talk), learning something new, etc. Exercising more choice on how we expend our mental energies can feel very empowering.

I’ve gotten into as much trouble for acting without thinking as I have for thinking without action … Can we learn to dance that fine line between enough self-reflection to make life worth living, and not getting lost in a maze of navel fluff?

Something to think about …

Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on (441) 705-7488,