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Over thinking can become such a habit.
1. Notice when you are stuck in your head. In fact, you might not even recognize when you’re overthinking. You’re paying attention so you can become more aware of the problem, but there’s a point where awareness becomes overthinking. When you’re replaying things over and over, you’re worrying, you’re attaching emotion to them. These are things that, more than likely, you cannot control. You can’t change it, so why overthink in the first place? They’re not going to be productive thoughts.
2. Keep the focus on problem solving. If you’re something that you can do tomorrow, something that you have really prepared for, then tomorrow is the time that you’re going to be rewarded. That is a good problem-solving way of thinking. You’re planning, your are problem-solving for something that can lead you to be productive. We need to distinguish between the problem-solving and the actual regretful thought.
3. Challenge your thoughts. It’s really easy to get carried away with being negative in our thinking. We need to challenge our thoughts. For example, before you conclude that calling in sick is going to actually get you fired, stop and think of the logic behind your thoughts. Challenge your thoughts.
4. Schedule time for reflection. Reflect how I am thinking as a person. By reflecting about how I am thinking, I can begin to simply list off my negative thoughts as opposed to my positive thoughts. If I can get those thoughts, I can clearly compare and adjust.
5. Learn mindfulness skills. Mindfulness is a wonderful thing. There is a whole new area that perhaps you haven’t even tapped into. By learning these mindfulness skills, there’s one certain thing that you’re going to have, and you’re going to have it for the rest of your life when all stress has come. You are giving yourself a breath in the moment. You’re giving yourself time to comprehend even the worst thing, and separate them in your mind
6. Let go of control. Sometimes you think that the only way something is going to get done correctly is if you go and do it. That puts way too much responsibility on your shoulders. Sometimes you need to just let mistakes happen. Analyze them a little bit, and then go forward.
7. Surround yourself with positive people. Whether they are your friends or strangers you are sharing a positive experience with, surround yourself with people in that moment who are positive
8. Live in the moment. If you live in the moment in life, moments will pass, but you look back and have happy memories of every moment. It is that simple.